


Depths of Desire: Binding Chains

by Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold (manka)



Series: Depths of Desire Saga [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hawke & Varric Tethras Friendship, Hawke is a menace who causes problems, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Of course Bianca is the name of the ship why would you even doubt that, Past Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Pirates, Protective Varric Tethras, Selkies, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Varric Tethras Is So Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manka/pseuds/Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold
Summary: Varric Tethras is a man of many talents - as famous for his silver tongue as the ship he owns that's the marvel of Thedas. Sometimes pirate, sometimes privateer, always smooth and dashing. He crafts a world of his own adrift at sea, surrounded by a crew of misfits and criminals from all walks of life.There's magic in the depths, any captain worth his ship knows it, but Varric Tethras had no intention of of getting mixed up in the nebulous world of sea creatures and mystery.When he accidentally inherits a furious, frightened Selkie, things begin to go tits up rather quickly. Maria is many things, but boring is not one of them, and the beautiful enchantress of his boat won't give up until she's got her freedom.Which turns out to be the only thing hecan'tgive her.
Relationships: Female Cadash/Varric Tethras
Series: Depths of Desire Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762726
Comments: 122
Kudos: 38





	1. An Old Sea Witch

At first, it had been a game.

And like all games, sometimes you won. Sometimes you lost your shirt. 

Varric Tethras rolled the dice too many times in his years to worry one way or another about how they may fall in one _particular_ instance. There was, after all, always the next time. In fact, If the other man at the card table that day had been a gentleman about the whole thing, it never would have escalated. After all, Captain Worthy won fair and square both the tidy little sum and the valuable maps Varric bet. 

It had been his fault, really. He’d thought his hand surely couldn’t lose, had been too deep in his cups, too caught up in the letter from _her_ burning a hole in his pocket. He misread the gesture Hawke made and, instead of folding like his first mate wanted, Varric rose, and… 

That’s where the trouble began.

The maps were a loss, he couldn’t deny that, but Varric was too good a captain to not already have them copied and hidden in his hollow desk drawer. He whistled, slightly drunk, the whole way back to his ship while Hawke laughed her Ferelden ass off as Worthy wobbled his own way back to his crew and the Red Iron. The leaky sailboat Worthy kept patching was hardly competition. Varric may have lost the hand, but he’d win the game by beating him to his prize. 

Except, _impossibly,_ Captain Worthy beat him there, picked up the stolen cargo Varric counted on stashing neatly in his own hold, and sailed off into the sunset. Varric couldn’t believe it. Refused to believe it, in all honesty. There wasn’t a ship to beat the Belle Bianca, not in all the seas of Thedas, how could Worthy have possibly left port at the same time, but still beat Varric to the goal? 

_Leave it be_ . He told himself, staring at his charts, thumbing his sextant thoughtfully. _Leave it be. Sometimes you lose._

Unfortunately, he’d always been a sore loser.

  


* * *

  


“Shall I remind you, _again_ , that this is hubris and foolishness on a profound level?” Fenris’s voice was as salty as the waves themselves, and just as rough. 

“It’s not on the schedule for another quarter hour.” Hawke chimed brightly, giving the dinghy a rather exuberant tug to anchor it securely on the rocky coast. “But do go on - I love to hear you complain.” 

“You’re never as nice when I start complaining.” Varric grumbled, wringing his jacket out. Hawke, apparently, hadn’t quite taken into account their height difference when coming ashore. It’d been four damn years since he picked the blighted woman up off the coast of Ferelden, but could the human consider his dwarven stature for once? Apparently not. 

“Andraste’s ass, Varric, if you sounded like Fenris when you complained…” 

“Is this really necessary?” Carver moaned, exasperated. 

“If I sounded like Broody, you’d get nothing done.” Varric pointed out, quite reasonably. Hawke shot the elf a saucy wink. Fenris, for his part, made a good act of scoffing, but he couldn’t hide the pleased quirk of his smile. 

Varric didn’t even bother getting used to the elf’s improved humor, he knew it wouldn’t last. 

They climbed up the rocky coast, keeping the rising sun on the east. The sand and gravel gave way to a thick wall of gnarled, foreign-looking trees. Carver sighed when he saw them. “Ah, good. I was wondering when we’d hack our way through a jungle today.” 

“I told you to pack your good hacking knife.” Hawke reprimanded with a wry grin. “Never leave the ship without it, Carver. Didn’t you ever listen to mother?” 

“Before the two of you ruin your blades.” Fenris interrupted, pointing a silver tattooed finger past Hawke’s pointed nose, “I suspect the witch you insist upon throwing yourself in front of can be found down that path.” 

Varric followed the elf’s gesture to spot a narrow path cleaving through the jungle. Varric didn’t need to ask how exactly Fenris figured out it was the path to the witch’s adobe. The skulls impaled on sharpened sticks, guarding the entrance like ghoulish footmen, certainly gave off the ‘a crazed witch lives here’ aesthetic. 

“Think those were her last visitors?” Hawke asked, but the cheerfulness sounded much more forced. “And, if so, do you think they looked better before they came?” 

He’d come this far. It wasn’t like he could stop and turn back now, was it? He’d traced down every damn lead in Thedas to find out Worthy’s secret, and all his sources pointed here with varying degrees of nervousness. 

There was a witch, they whispered over their pints, an old sea witch who lived on the coast of Ferelden near what the landlocked called the Kocari Wilds. He was told she stayed deep in the south where the sea froze in the winter, surviving on malice and the blood of children. Nothing but a creature of malevolent intent, after all, could live in such a wild, cruel place. 

“You and Junior stay here.” Varric ordered the elf. Fenris, for his part, accepted it with graceful triumph. After all, the man had no desire to be chasing down witches in the asscrack of Ferelden. Junior, on the other hand…

“I’m not babysitting my sister’s pet elf.” Carver spat. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Carver.” Hawke widened her eyes innocently, pulling her cutlass from her belt. “You’re babysitting the boat. Fenris is babysitting _you_.”

Hawke always could make him laugh, even when her intended audience was the Broody bastard looking far too smug behind Carver’s back. Ignoring Carver’s sputtering protests, Hawke brushed past the gruesome trail markers and into the woods. 

“If we’re not back in two hours…” Varric started. 

“Abandon you to your fates?” Fenris asked. 

“Make up a story that sounds a lot more impressive than ‘thrown into a witch’s stew’ for me. Something satisfactorily heroic.” 

“Strangled by your own chest hair?” The elf suggested wryly. 

Maker, when Fenris and Hawke _finally_ got around to getting each other’s pants off, he’d have to kill both of them instead of allowing them to feed off each other.

“Very manly.” Varric huffed instead, turning to follow Hawke. “I approve.” 

As far as last words went, Varric thought, they weren’t the worst he’d heard of. Silently, he trudged after Hawke’s lithe form, the shadows darkening above them. 

  


* * *

  


The hair on the back of Varric’s neck prickled as they made their way into the ominous shadowy forest. He didn’t have the slightest idea where the sun had gone. Even for dreary Ferelden, this place took the prize for gloomy. Hawke ducked low to avoid hitting her head on the snarling branches. Varric wished he could say he found the path easier, but the roots of the trees insisted on tripping him at every fucking turn, no matter how he scanned the forest floor for them.

His overactive imagination wondered if they were alive, intent on protecting the witch in the woods from intruders who didn’t belong there. He was so focused on not stumbling into the loamy, leaf-littered earth that he ran right into Hawke’s ass when she stopped.

“Andraste’s tits, Hawke, what are you-” 

“Look at that.” Hawke tipped her head to the side in invitation. The posture reminded him a bit of a bird looking at something both fascinating and bewildering. “There _is_ a witch’s hut back here. Who knew?” 

“The amount of trouble I spent chasing this lead, there better be a damn witch back here.” Varric grumbled, stepping around the too-tall human to stare down the scene himself. Varric counted himself a rather descriptive author, but even he couldn’t conjure up a more haunted, malevolent house if he tried. The squat hut looked like it was made of nothing but the forest floor itself, forming sturdy walls with crooked windows that gave the appearance of eyes slanted suspiciously. Assorted rubbish littered the ground surrounding the home. It looked like it was composed of ashes, moldy herbs, and small bones that he _prayed_ belonged to animals. Empty cages hung, swinging in the wind, from trees up above them.

They were just about the right height to contain a dwarf. 

“Do we knock?” Hawke asked quietly. “Or do we run back to the ship and say we didn’t find anything?” 

Before Varric could answer, the door to the hut creaked open in clear invitation. One that unmistakably said come in, make yourself at home, jump into the cauldron… 

He could throttle himself for his _damn_ curiosity and stubborn pride. 

“We’ve come this far.” He offered, striding past Hawke toward the menacing hovel. May as well follow the trail to the bitter end. Hawke sighed, but she didn’t argue. He knew if he looked up, he’d see her blue eyes sparkling with clear excitement at the challenge. 

He pulled his pistol from within the sash tied around his tunic and approached the door cautiously. He paused outside and peered into the darkened lair. Strange herbs dangled from the sturdy beams, mixed with more bits of bones, shiny stones, shells, and odd bits of wood and bark that looked like leering faces. A fire crackled in the center of the room, smoke rising lazily through a hole in the roof. He couldn’t see a bubbling cauldron, but Varric wouldn’t be surprised if one languished in the shadowy corners. 

“You’re letting the draft in, boy. Close the damn door or run back to your ship.” 

A lesser man would have yelped in surprise and pissed himself right in the doorway. As it was, Varric barely beat back the urge to slam the door closed, then drag Hawke back to Bianca. His eyes slid to the source of the noise instead, blood running cold as he saw the woman sitting in a chair by the flickering flames. 

The old woman, white hair pulled in tangled, snarled braids away from her face, speared with bits of feather and shell, looked like she’d been sitting there for a hundred years. In reality, if she’d been there the first time he looked, he’d eat his jacket. 

“You the witch of the wilds?” He asked. 

The murderous grin stretching the woman’s face was all the answer he needed, but she spoke anyway. “It is one of my many names. Now come in or get out before I lose my patience.” 

Before his courage could falter, he stepped over the threshold. For all her complaints of a draft, the interior was positively muggy. Hawke slipped in beside him like his shadow, wary and alert.

As his first mate slowly unfolded her form, the door slammed shut behind her. He couldn't quite see Hawke's expression in the shadowy room, but he didn't need to. Hawke surely had the same exact thought he did. It could be distilled down to two words.

_Well, shit._

"Odd choice for a dwarf of your ilk, isn’t it? Sailing the seas, as far from your stone, your money, and ancestors as you can be.” The witch leaned forward, like she could feel his weakness in the air. 

“Did it help, leaving your broken heart on land?" She finally asked, a mad cackle lacing her cruel voice. 

Varric didn't blink, sliding his practiced mask over his features. He'd grown up in the most ruthless guild in Thedas. She'd need to do better than _that_ to get under his skin. "You know, I misplaced all my dwarven traditions a long time ago. Never did find them."

"Same with his beard." Hawke whispered theatrically, twirling her cutlass nonchalantly around her finger. Her easy humor gave him the confidence to press on. 

"I'm looking for answers. There's a captain that's gotten into the bad habit of being in the right place at the right time far too often." Varric didn't want to sit here and trade banter with the crazy witch. He wanted to get back on his ship and sail far, far away from here with the information he wanted. "The Captain's name is…"

"Worthy." The witch breathed, leaning forward. The expression on her face could only be called greedy. "A stroke of luck, obtaining what he has. You'd take it from him if you could, wouldn't you? Make it your own? Another feather in your cap? A jewel for your Bianca?" 

The name, _her_ name, in the witch's mouth made him shiver. He tried to push his unease down and shrugged gamely. "If it's for the taking, why not?" 

"And everything is for the taking, is it not?" The witch asked silkily. "If the price is right."

He untied the pouch at his waist with deft fingers, tossing it to the witch. She caught it with one skeletal hand, weighing the heavy coin purse with consideration before she spoke. "A fair amount of gold to solve your mystery."

"Always hated a cliffhanger." Varric remarked wryly. 

"More like never can let anything go." Hawke grumbled. 

The witch flung the purse back in his direction. If his reflexes were any worse, he’d have been smacked right in the face by his own gold. “Keep your coin, Captain. I have no need for it.” 

“You work on charity?” Hawke drawled. “Kind of you. Can’t imagine the whole coast witch thing was real lucrative to begin with.” 

Someday, Hawke was going to be sarcastic to the wrong person at the wrong time. It could, in fact, be right at that moment. Luckily, the witch seemed amused. She laughed at Hawke’s insolence, a throaty sound that reverberated in the hot room. Sweat beaded at the back of his neck and dripped beneath his shirt. 

“I don’t want your coin, but there is a price to gain the power you seek.” The witch had that covetous look again. “Perhaps this is fate. Perhaps only a joke. I never can tell.” 

This was not what he had counted on. Varric Tethras had stared down enough shitty deals to know when to walk away. He was starting to think this was one of those moments. “What kinda price you looking at?” 

“Completing an errand, if you will.” The witch reached up to her neck and ripped a cord violently from her neck, the leather snapping. She dangled it from her long, wrinkled fingers. An odd, tarnished amulet shimmered in the firelight. “Have you heard of the isles of Sundermount?” 

“Who hasn’t?” Varric scoffed. “The blighted place is cursed. Old sea magic.” The isles were flung far north in the Waking Sea, shrouded in mist so thick that no one could pass. Any ship that tried was dashed across the rocks. 

“When you find the power you seek, you’ll pass through the magic shrouding it easily. Then you must take this and climb to the peak.” The witch requested. 

“And then do what?” Hawke asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Take our clothes off and dance in a circle?” 

“You may, if it pleases you, but it won’t be necessary. _She’ll_ know what to do.” The witch met his eyes, her own dark ones sparkling with vindictive pleasure. “I am letting you off cheap, Captain. Complete one small errand and change your entire destiny. If you promise to do this tiny thing for me, you’ll find what you’ve _always_ sought on Worthy’s ship.” 

It sounded too good to be true. Which meant it probably was. “I don’t think so.” 

“Varric, you’ve got to be shitting me.” Hawke blurted out. “We came the whole way here…” 

“Listen to the girl, Captain.” The witch was laughing at him. “You’ll never find your way, otherwise.” 

“We don’t make deals with witches, Hawke. She takes my coin or we walk.” 

“What is she going to spend coin on out here?” Hawke asked, gesturing to the meager hovel. He shot his first mate a warning glance. Hawke ignored him. 

“Fine.” She held out her hand for the amulet, blue eyes flashing. “I’ll run your errand for him.” 

“That’s a good girl.” The witch crooned, Hawke stepping forward to tear the necklace from her hand. “A very good girl indeed.” 

The second Hawke took the necklace, Varric felt something icy slip down his spine, more powerful than the overpowering heat. The witch stood, taller than he thought she would be, ripping a shell from the rafters above and tossing it into the flames. Smoke in a deep blue, flashes of light bursting within it, rose from the embers. 

The witch peered into the flames, lips curling into a sneer. Varric wondered if this wasn’t where she turned them into toads and set them loose. The fear made his heart thud unevenly as the smoke billowed.

Until he saw something that made Varric forget his worries. 

For a second, the length of one heartbeat, he swore he saw a face in the smoke. A ghost of a woman more beautiful than any he’d seen in years, and she was staring right at him with a half smile that made desire thrum in his blood. 

The witch chose then to blow out a gust of breath that scattered the smoke like clouds in a storm, vanishing his hallucination with the flickering flames, leaving nothing but glowing ash beneath the charred wood. 

Varric wasn’t prepared for the witch to dive her hand into the embers, but neither was Hawke. She winced as the witch lifted up a fistful of smoking ash with a triumphant smirk. “His ship cannot compare to yours, but you’ll catch him only by surprise. And you’ll never win unless you silence the ocean.” 

“Silence the ocean.” Hawke repeated, in the exact same tone of voice she’d repeat a drunk sailor’s ramblings. Maker bless her. “How, exactly, does one do that?” 

“Is that not why you came to me?” The witch asked joyfully, descending into another fit of cackling. 

Varric came here because he couldn’t stand to not have an answer, couldn’t bear one more more loose end in a life full of them, not if he could help it. The witch tipped the ash into a glass bottle, humming roughly under her breath, and Hawke looked down at him, askance. If this went tits up, if his crew of misfits got hurt, he had no one but himself to blame. 

That thought was _not_ comforting. 

  


* * *

  


Maria’s fingers never stopped moving over the netting spread across her lap, but in truth, she barely saw it. Mending the rigging felt so similar to mending fishing nets that she could do it without blinking an eye, without even paying attention. Honestly, she didn’t even know how long she’d been at it until she heard a soft cough from above her. 

“Did they give you anything to eat this morning?” The tall man hunkered down beside her, his tan skin gleaming in the hot sun, mustache drooping with disapproval. “Or are you to survive on nothing but spite today?” 

“Spite, I suppose.” She answered, ceasing her endless movements to meet the warm eyes taking her in. “What did they give you today, Lieutenant Pavus?” 

“Biscuits hard enough to chip your pretty teeth on. I saved you two.” He reached into the stiff coat, the last remainder of his life before he too ended up stuck on the Red Iron. The gold braid on his white coat still shimmered, even though parts of it were becoming a bit thread-worn. He pulled out two hard pieces of bread and her mouth watered, but she looked away quickly before he could see the pang of want. 

“Kind of you, serah.” She adopted the tone of a bored lady, mimicked perfectly from her time in Ostwick. It never failed to make Dorian laugh. “But I like my teeth as they are, thank you kindly.” 

“Maria.” Dorian insisted, with far too much affection. “Take one, at least. It’ll put my mind at ease knowing you’re wasting away from boredom instead of hunger.”

“I can’t.” She dropped her eyes back to the mess of rope in her lap and pulled it apart, perhaps a bit too harshly. “You may as well eat it. I can’t.” 

She wasn’t _allowed_ . She’d been ordered not to eat anything as a punishment for her latest act of defiance, but clearly Dorian hadn’t been told. That meant _Captain Worthy_ still felt quite keenly embarrassed, and that brought a vindictive surge of pleasure that nearly blotted out the clawing hunger. 

Nearly. 

“You _can’t_.” Dorian repeated, aghast. “Andraste’s silky petticoats. When was the last time he allowed you to eat anything?” 

“I had some of that very charming gruel for breakfast.” Yesterday, but Dorian didn’t need to know that. He would only make himself angry, and if his anger caused him to storm up to the captain again, demanding Maria was treated well or, even better, set free… 

The last time he did that, they’d ripped his skin to ribbons with the lash and it took all her meager magic to stitch him back together. Even _she_ couldn’t get rid of the scars it left. If Dorian himself wasn’t so valuable, the only trained navigator on the ship that was able to read and write, decipher the maps and charts… 

That’s why they’d taken him from the Navy ship he served on. Worthy, after all, had an eye for worthwhile hostages. Dorian had been on this ship now nearly as long as she was, which had to be a year. A year trapped in her itchy, too-small surfacer skin, a year forced to obey any and all commands issued, a year since…

_A year since the man she loved bled out in her arms._

She’d been so lost in her own thoughts she missed the spark of danger kindling in Dorian’s eyes until he stood, tall and impressive, glaring around the deck. His hand flew to his waist where a sabre would hang, if he were allowed to carry one. 

“Dorian, stop.” She ordered. A fun idea, really, pretending she could issue commands.

“I will not.” He strode away and Maria untangled herself from the rigging to follow him. She fisted her small hand in his coat and tried to pull him back. 

“It’s my fault.” Maria insisted. He was stronger than she was, especially like this, and all she succeeded in doing was allowing him to pull her down the deck past the bustling, sallow faced crew. Some of them leered, but Maria had gotten adept at ignoring them. “He told me to bring him water.” 

“Let me guess.” Dorian’s tone lacked all amusement. “You took him salt water?” 

He looked down over his shoulder, shaking his head at the expression on her face. She tried to look contrite, but she feared she failed miserably. “Of course you did. So he’s going to starve you into submission now?” 

He was going to attempt it, at least, but Maria wondered if death by hunger wouldn’t be a bit easier than living this twilight existence. She was only half of herself, chained to a man she loathed, the murderer of her husband, bane of her existence. She’d never be free while he lived, so perhaps she _should_ simply be dead. 

The blazing spark of anger in Dorian’s eyes extinguished itself in an icy wave of dread and worry while he stared into her face. He swore again in Tevene, the language he taught her during their quiet, precious moments. She still couldn’t make her tongue curve around the elegant syllables, but she loved to listen to him. 

Instead of continuing to stomp off, Dorian shoved her behind a mountain of barrels and ammunition instead, crouching down low once more. “Maria, listen to me. We are not going to die on this blighted, termite-infested pile of driftwood. _You_ are not going to die here.” 

Dorian’s steady, calming refrain was a balm to soothe her frayed nerves, even if she believed it less every day. His long, elegant fingers curled around her arm. “Tell me the order. Exactly how he said it.” 

Maria sighed, let her eyes skip to the blue sky stretching endlessly above the sea surrounding them. She couldn’t see the water below, but she could _feel_ it, she could always feel it. The currents tugged at her very soul, sang her to sleep at night, whispered that the waves and water were waiting with open arms to welcome her home if _only_ she’d slip beneath them. 

But she couldn’t. 

She _couldn’t_ because Worthy had the fur coat he’d taken from the chest at the end of her marital bed, and as long as he breathed, she was nothing but his slave. 

“Don’t eat anything.” Sometimes, Worthy was stupid enough to leave her loopholes in his orders. This time, Maria was afraid she wasn’t that lucky. 

“Bloody bastard.” Dorian reached quickly into his coat and pulled a glimmering golden vial from his chest, pressing it securely into her hand even as she made a noise of protest. 

Dorian shook his head. “I insist. It won’t do much long-term, I fear, but perhaps it will get you through the worst of it and you’ll _technically_ be drinking it. He’ll relent. Or…” 

Dorian didn’t finish his thought. He couldn’t after all, because Maria _couldn’t_ be trusted. Anything Dorian told her was liable to fall right back out her lips the moment Worthy commanded her to repeat it. The tiny vial, an expensive stamina draught stolen from who knows where secreted in his coat pocket, was only part of whatever Dorian was up to. 

Maria knew Lieutenant Dorian Pavus, beloved son of the Tevinter Navy, started scheming to get free the moment he was pressed into service on Worthy’s ship. The second he realized the dwarven woman with the crimson hair and stormy eyes was even more a prisoner than he was, he’d adjusted his plans to take her with him. She _knew_ it, even if he never said. 

Maria wondered if Dorian couldn’t have escaped months ago, if he wasn’t so intent he could free her too. 

She tucked the precious vial in the secret pocket she’d sewn into her own skirt, nodding her gratitude, unable to express it in words that sat deep in her throat. Instead, she tried for a joke. “Thank the depths for technicalities?” 

“After this is all through, I should convince you to study law. You would be the solicitor to end all others.” Dorian joined in the humor as well, his hand tightening on her arm for only a moment before it fell helplessly to his side. 

Before she could reply, _something_ happened. Maria didn’t know exactly how to describe it. She felt something hot breathe against her neck, something that smelled of ash and smoke, that reminded her of fairy stories of dragons. She shivered and stepped forward, catching herself on Dorian’s shoulder while she scanned the space behind her. 

“Maria?” He asked quietly. “Are you-”

“Seducing the crew again?” Worthy’s voice cut across the deck like a whip and Maria barely resisted the urge to curl her small fingers into Dorian’s worn frock coat. She could see herself reflected in Dorian’s dark eyes, alight with anger again. She quickly mastered her expression, smoothing the frightened girl into a disdainful, cool creature before turning her attention to the captain. 

“Sorry. You’ve mistaken me for one of your whores.” She spat out, stepping away from Dorian as he straightened. Worthy, for all his short stature, stood on the deck as if he weren’t the weak king of a sad little kingdom built on the labor of others. Everything he had, from the gold beads in his beard to the rum in his flask, was Maria’s doing. Her magic. Her _suffering_. 

“Not a mistake, is it, lass?” He asked cruelly, pale lips curling beneath his ruddy brown beard. “Come here.” 

Dorian glared over her head and Maria froze for the barest second. She always froze like this, until the pressure to move began to turn to agony. She never wanted to snap to attention to follow his orders. She’d rather feel the searing, choking feeling of _not_ obeying for a few seconds. When pins prickled up her skin, she moved forward with all the swagger she could summon until she stood in front of him.

Worthy leaned in, his fetid breath harsh on her ear. Maria shuddered in revulsion, but she couldn’t pull away. She could tell Worthy was returning Dorian’s mutinous expression with a cruel one of his own, and the whisper in her ear was pitched just loud enough for the human man to hear every single word. “Don’t speak to Lieutenant Pavus again.” 

Worthy’s hand stroked a possessive line up her hip, over her waist. Maria felt her heart thud in panic. “Back to work, lass.” Worthy growled. 

Maria didn’t look over her shoulder at Dorian. She couldn’t bear to see the impotent rage in his face. Instead, she pushed past Worthy, blinking tears quickly out of her eyes before he could see them. 

She wouldn’t give him the damn satisfaction. 

  


* * *

  


The ship bobbed gently in the moonlight when Maria made her way down into the lower berths. The shift she wore, ragged at the edges and no longer even close to white, dragged against the deck. Men snored, a cacophony of noise that nobody in their right mind could sleep through. 

Dorian’s bunk was shoved in the smallest part of the ship, a space not even tall enough for him to stand. He did have a lantern, a concession so he could read charts late at night, the ones spread out around him. 

She wondered if he stayed up at night to wait for her, because she always found him like this. Unfortunately, she’d never be able to ask now. He raised his eyes from the maps as he heard the scuffle of her approach, his eyes exhausted and full of more sorrow than she cared to see. 

“There you are.” The chain binding Dorian to the wall clanked around his wrist, the skin red and sore. She emerged into his puddle of light silently, shaking her head. She opened her mouth… only to snap it shut again before a word could escape her. 

“Don’t fight it. You’ll make yourself ill.” Dorian cautioned. “Besides, I do love the sound of my own voice. This will be perfect!” 

His voice was too light, too fragile. Maria blinked quickly, wrapping her arms around her bruised and ruined body, trembling with hunger, emotion, and fear. Drowning under the anchor of regret in Dorian’s eyes. Slowly, he patted the cot beside him. “Come on then. Shall I tell you a story of Minrathous?” 

She nodded, slipping into the empty space beside where he sat, curling herself as small as she could. She wiped the tears from her cheeks quickly and leaned back against the rotting wood. 

Beneath her, the ocean crooned words only she could hear, bitter and tempting. 

_Come to us. We’re waiting for you in the dark, daughter._ _  
_

_We’re waiting for you to return and sink their ships, drown their corpses._

_Teach them what happens to those who trap the sea._

_Make them pay the cost in blood._ _  
_

_We’re waiting for you, sister._


	2. Silence the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The witch of the wilds told Varric to make his next move _only_ when he saw a red flag flying, but he wasn't prepared for what form that red flag would take. Maria is silenced by magic she's never seen before.

The fog shrouding the sea surrounding the Red Iron felt like a living thing with icy, clammy fingers that caught at Maria's blouse and tore at the tendrils of her hair falling from the ragged scarf she’d used to tie it up. The sails hung above them, limp and damp, in no clear hurry to go anywhere. Maria frowned into the gray sky, shaking her head and looking back towards Dorian. Slowly, she raised her hands up and made a slow, twisting motion, mouthing the word without saying it. _Problem?_

“Clearly.” Dorian murmured. It took them less than a day to figure out a way around her newest command. Their careful, quiet method of her mouthing words and creating hand gestures for common things still needed fine tuning, but thank the depths, it worked. The only issue, of course, was making sure nobody saw them. 

That thought made her look, paranoid, over her own shoulder. The nearest crew lazed on the deck, still drunk from the night before. Worthy hadn’t even shown himself yet, although Maria knew her reprieve was short. She tugged, thoughtlessly, at the ragged sleeves around her wrists. It wasn’t much, but it hid the marks from the rope, and she couldn’t bear Dorian’s silent fury and saccharine sympathy. 

She turned her silent attention back to Dorian, watching him peer at the delicate instrument in his hand that she didn’t understand. She didn’t need anything like it, after all, she could _feel_ the tides underneath her, pulling her north or south, towards land, or far away. She may be mute, but sometimes she felt as if these surfacers were completely deaf _and_ blind. 

This morning, however, she felt as land-dazed as they must every single day. This was clearly no normal fog hanging over their heads. It was as if the sky, the sea, and the wind had all fallen as silent as she’d been forced to be. The quiet eerie stillness of it made her uneasy. Dorian swung his eyes from the device to look at her. “Could you do something about it, if needed?” 

Maria’s only answer was a simple shrug. She honestly _didn’t_ know. If it was normal fog, all she needed to do was whistle and dispel it, but she swore she could taste magic in the air. The crackle and pop of power should have felt familiar, but it didn’t. 

She wouldn’t be able to try until Worthy woke up anyway. He forbade her from magic without his specific permission, after she managed to find quite a few loopholes in his original set of commandments. Dorian sighed wearily. 

“I suppose we shall see.” Dorian rolled up the map and placed it back within his coat with the odd instrument he used to calculate their position. Maria wrapped her arms around her torso, turning her attention back out to the shrouded sea. Over her shoulder, Dorian mumbled to himself about tides and ships. 

He didn’t see the shape melting from the fog. Maria, in fact, wasn’t sure she saw it at first. Her eyes peered into the mist, frowning in concentration, until the dark shape began to solidify into a solid form. 

She tried to shout for Dorian, but her voice died in her mouth. She choked on his name, panicking for a brief moment as she struggled to draw breath around it. When she caught her breath, gasping for air, she twisted to glare at the back of Dorian’s head. She slapped her palm off the banister, too loudly in her irritation. He turned to her, scowling, but his dark eyes slid over her shoulder and caught sight of the shape manifesting. He looked stunned for all of two seconds before his mind began to spin. He pierced her with a commanding gaze. “This could be our chance.” 

The confusion in her gaze must have been clear, because Dorian simply grabbed her arm, eyes searing. “Listen to me. If this ship attacks, do _only_ what you’re ordered to do. Try and stay low otherwise, yes?” 

Maria tried to ignore the lurch in her gut at the steely grip on her limb. She breathed through the unpleasantness and tried to think. They were in the middle of the ocean. Between the two of them, they had little to no supplies. They didn’t even have her magic, leashed as she was. She shook her head in startled disbelief and Dorian frowned. “Trust me.” 

She had little choice, if she couldn’t trust Dorian, she could trust no one. 

The other crew members finally saw what she had seen first. Their shouting would rouse Worthy, and she couldn’t be beside Dorian when he found her. He’d certainly be looking, and her body ached too much to risk another punishment so soon on the heels of the last. She blew out her breath and nodded before retreating quickly, careful of the splintering wood beneath her bare feet. 

She was frightened to think of what Dorian was planning, but also exhilarated. A beaten, dark part of her resisted, reminded her as long as Worthy owned her coat, she’d never truly be free. She’d be pulled back again and again, even if she fled, because Worthy would never set her free, but if he were murdered… 

_Well_. Then the coat passed to his murderer, and Dorian had been carrying a murderous glint in his eyes for many months. He would give her back her power, _she_ could make sure he arrived safely wherever he needed to go, regardless of supplies, and then…

_And then what?_ She couldn’t go home. She’d abandoned one and been told she could never return. The other burned because she couldn’t save it, so she had nowhere left to go. 

No future, a painful past, and a brutal present. 

Despair gripped her heart just in time for Worthy to emerge from his cabin, shrewd eyes flying to the ship slipping closer to theirs in the fog. Then his thunderous fury rounded on her. “Lazy slut.” He sneered, grabbing her arm with little care for the bruises he’d left prior and hauling her back towards the railing where Dorian still stood, frozen. His hard fingers dug through the thin cotton, as if to bruise her skin even further, before he thrust her forward. She flailed to grab at the railing before she tumbled tits over ass overboard. 

“Why haven’t you done anything about this blighted fog?” Worthy demanded. 

The fog that allowed this ship to sneak right up on him. Even under his anger, Worthy sounded _worried_. It served him right, _he_ was the one who’d tied her hands after all. Instead of reminding him of this fact, Maria affected careful nonchalance when she answered. “It suited my mood.” 

He pulled her back so violently, she heard the blouse rip. One meaty, stinking hand circled her throat and another pressed her torso back, hard, to his chest. Her pulse thudded with a spike of fear in spite of herself, nausea rolling in her stomach as his beard scraped her shoulder, bare skin exposed by the ripped cotton. “I’ll put that mouth of yours to work later, for that.” Worthy growled, tightening his grip on her until instincts took over and she thrashed against him, pointed elbow seeking that soft spot between ribs and…

“Stop.” Worthy hissed. The command sucked the air from her chest, the fight from her leaden limbs. She heard Dorian make a small, choked sound, but she went stiff within Worthy’s arms anyway, frozen in action.

Worthy’s laughter against her chilled flesh, hot and fetid, made her skin crawl, but she couldn’t move. He turned to his first mate, calling out a question. “What colors is that floating hovel flying?” 

The first mate pulled his cracked and dirty scope from inside his jacket, putting it to his good eye and peering forward before he swore. “By the Maker’s teeth. I think it’s the Belle Bianca, Captain.”

Worthy’s hands sunk into her soft flesh greedily, like she was a proxy for the ship. His breath exhaled in a covetous gasp. The name of the ship sounded familiar, attached to another name she couldn’t quite recall, but it was obvious Worthy _desired_ that ship as jealousy as he wanted to hold and ruin any precious thing he found. 

His thumb stroked her jaw thoughtfully, but he let her suffer in the silence under his touch for only a moment before he issued the next command. “Reel her in for us, love. See if you can’t topple the crew right off.” 

He punctuated the sentence with a rough, brisk kiss against her jaw. Maria let out a trembling breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the sick slide of nerves in her gut. She raised her finger into the air and twisted it in a half-circle, feeling the current beneath her respond sluggishly. This had been easy, once. The sea had been nothing but her playground, and spinning the tide to her whims then came as naturally as breathing. Unfortunately, it seemed to get harder everyday. Still, the magic came like a jerk behind her navel, poured through her and back into the water below. The beautiful, proud ship fell into her current like fish in Fynn’s net back when she’d been happy, back when she’d been _free_. She tipped her head to the side, away from Worthy’s harsh, panting breath, staring down the elegant masts thoughtfully.

It was like the crew wasn’t even trying to fight her current, following it without worry. 

“Weapons, you rats!” Worthy roared in her ear. Maria flinched and met Dorian’s steady gaze. He looked calm, even though his knuckles were white where his hands curled into fists. “Give no quarter! We’ll have a new home tonight and Tethras will…” 

Maria flitted her eyes back to the sea, just in time to watch the pretty ship wrench to the side, maneuvering like she’d never seen a ship do. It moved more like a great, graceful whale than any surfacer construct of wood and nails. Like a dancer slicing through the waves, impressive and solid. It was still caught in her current, of course, but now with cannons facing them. 

Worthy noticed it too. His big fist rose from her neck to grab her hair, knocking the loosely tied scarf to the deck and letting the red waves fall in a curtain, caught in the wind. He wrenched her head back quickly and growled in her ear. “Send them to the sharks.”

She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it. She pulled the rest of the ocean magic, salt and blood, from deep in her bones and took a deep breath. The waves around the Red Iron grew in response, lashing threateningly against the Belle Bianca. Maria held her breath for a moment. Another. She needed to wait for the right moment, the perfect wave to knock the crew from the deck but leave the ship intact for Worthy to plunder. 

Just like she’d done so many times before. 

This time she didn’t get a chance. She could see the Belle Bianca’s crew, indistinct figures scurrying along the deck, except for two. The first was short and broad, built nearly like Worthy, studying the Red Iron as calmly as Maria watched _them_. A taller, slender figure over his shoulder gave off the same quiet concentration, but it was the shorter one that moved. 

He sprang into action like a whip, she barely understood that he was about to throw something before the object spun through the air. It spun and arced cleanly through the air, glittering in the light. She thought it was a grenade, at first, and simply assumed somebody would kick it back into the ocean before it exploded . 

She realized it was a glass flask only a heartbeat before it shattered at her feet, spraying dusty smoke into the air. The acrid ash rose, tentacles curling in the air like it sought _something._

In the next moment, she realized it _sought_ her. 

She opened her mouth to breathe out the wave that would crash over the Belle Bianca, but before she could, the smoke forced itself past her lips. She choked on the scent of burnt seaweed, the taste of sand, the bitterness of dry and dead starfish ground to a powder. She coughed and staggered forward, Worthy’s arm slipping from her in shock as he dropped her. She lurched toward the rail for support. 

“Maria!” Dorian’s cry split the sudden silence, catching her before she could fall over the side. He lowered her, gently, to her knees as she heaved for breath. But the harder she gasped, the dryer her mouth seemed. She felt like the ocean itself was leeching from her bones, leaving her weak and pale. 

“What in the void is wrong with you, you great…” Worthy was already reaching for her, but Dorian stupidly swung his body between the two of them. 

“I’ll tell you what has happened.” Dorian hissed, one arm curling protectively around her shoulders. “The Belle Bianca knew _quite_ well what you had on board and came prepared for it. That was a drought to drain her of magic. She’ll have nothing to give you-” 

Before Dorian could finish explaining what Maria felt was patently obvious, she heard the great boom of a cannon, too close. Through the splits of the rail, she saw the approaching ship pivot elegantly again. She could stare down into the depths of their cannons as they fired.

The boom was followed quickly by the crack and splintering of wood as the first fired shell found its mark down below. Dorian turned his attention to her, curling his fingers into her arm. “Are you alright?” 

She shook her head. Dorian was the only one still watching her, which was good, because she felt like she may be ill. Worthy had turned to his men with another roar. “To the cannons!” 

* * *

The fog Anders conjured was perfect cover, even if it felt like cold soup and made his hair stick unpleasantly to the back of his neck. By the time Worthy’s crew saw them, the Belle Bianca was damn near close enough to unload her cannons into their asses. 

But Varric had been instructed to wait. He recalled the Witch of the Wild’s bright, crazed eyes and her matching insane grin. She handed him the flask full of ash, which still felt warm after a week’s worth of travel, and gave him one last bit of parting advice: 

_Throw it at the feet of the red flag, Captain, and then claim your prize._

He expected, quite logically, to see somebody climbing the mast to raise a different jolly roger. Instead, the crew of Worthy’s ship crowded the deck, watching them in a way that made Varric, frankly, more than a little twitchy. 

Varric wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch of nerves, especially when the current changed with a harsh jerk, reeling his baby in like a fish helpless on a hook. Anders’s damn cat hissed and jumped from the quarterdeck down into the lower berths, fur standing on end. Isabela tried to steady the wheel behind him and Hawke before crying out. “Varric! A little help over here!” 

“Turn into it.” He ordered back over his shoulder, eyes scanning the indistinct, foggy figures of the crew until they zeroed in on Worthy. He would have been easy to miss, shorter than most of the ragtag crew, except for the ostentatious hat and unruly beard. Easier still, when he was near hidden behind the figure he had wrapped in his arms. 

A _woman_ . Even at this current distance, Varric could see her shapeless skirt drowning her form. Worthy had his face tipped into her neck, whispering to her he supposed. Odd, he thought. From what he knew of Worthy, which was a fair sight more than he wanted to, the man was as idiotically traditional as they came. Women were bad luck, Varric had been told more than once, although he didn’t mind. Their stupidity left some damn good sailors, with him the only one willing to hire them.

Bianca swung into the current at Isabela’s slightest urging, in perfect position to turn her guns on the Red Iron. From the corner of his eye, Varric watched Broody’s scowling form approach. “Magic.” He growled. “We must fire now and end this before we are dragged to the bottom of the sea.”

“Not yet.” Varric responded mildly, watching. “Red flag, remember?” 

“Yes. I see several.” Carver snapped from further down the deck. “Starting with-” 

Something about the way that woman stood, still as a statue, made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. She was watching them with icy concentration while the rest of the crew watched her. 

Something happened. Varric couldn’t tell what, exactly, but judging by the way her chin lifted in a sharp jerk to the sky, the fluttering scrap of fabric falling to the deck, and Worthy’s vanishing fist, he had a good idea. Hawke had the same one, he heard it in the long hiss of air forced between her teeth. 

And they said chivalry was dead. Varric opened his mouth to demand Fenris and Carver begin firing, red flag be damned, when the wind kicked up around the small woman sandwiched in Worthy’s arms. Her red hair, free of the scarf, flew around her in a cloud of flames. 

Varric exhaled his own breath in a choked gasp.

“Varric.” Hawke’s voice was too calm, too precise. All emotion stripped out of it, leaving only the woman who could fight with the fury of the sea itself. “That’s your cue.” 

It was. He knew it with blooming certainty and rising unease. The glass flask in his hand felt heavier with each passing second, his gaze narrowed on the woman, his own throat going dry. Something was wrong here, something was _terribly_ wrong and they should flee back into the oceans rather than throw themselves into the storm of trouble waiting on the deck. 

He swore he could hear the witch laughing. _Perhaps this is fate. Perhaps only a joke._

If it was a joke, he wasn’t laughing. There was something on that ship, something powerful, something wild. Something that didn’t belong to Worthy, or perhaps any Captain, and if he tried to hold it, he’d risk burning his own fingers. 

“Varric.” Hawke’s voice was still too calm, but it sliced through him like a knife. They were no longer being pulled closer to the Red Iron, but were being held perfectly still. The ocean around them felt as if it was holding its breath, waiting. A large wave crashed against the starboard side, salt spray coating his face. 

He snapped into action on instinct instead of thought. He reeled his arm back and let the flask fly, a perfect arc in the air between the two ships. He didn’t need to follow its path, he knew his aim was deadly. Knew he’d hit his mark. The only thing he _wasn’t_ sure of was what, exactly, would happen next. 

The flask shattered on the deck near the redhead’s feet, he could hear it even above the sound of the waves crashing against Bianca’s hull. The woman didn’t even have time to step away from the black smoke that curled around her like grasping hands, a great sea monster conjured of magic from his shattered vial. In her next breath, she choked on the burning contents. Even from the distance, Varric could see her careen forwards, hunching into herself, unsteady fingers seeking the railing. He heard a cry from one of the sailors, someone who rushed to assist her, and at the same time…

At the same time the current released its grip on the Belle Bianca. The waves fell backwards into themselves. The ocean appeared to fall completely, utterly silent. 

_Fuck._

He thought Worthy had stolen superior navigation instruments. Perhaps some old Finfolk alchemy, even though Anders scoffed at that theory, or even Ceasg magic. He never thought… 

“Varric, what _is_ she?” Hawke asked. 

She _couldn’t_ be what he was beginning to suspect she was. _That_ was impossible, those stories were nothing but fairy tales told to dwarven children at their nanny’s knee. 

“A sea witch.” Fenris growled, looking askance at the Red Iron. “You have both led us into battle with a sea witch. Perhaps next week, we shall locate a kraken’s nest and steal it’s eggs.” 

Hawke, bless her, had a quip ready. “How much do kraken’s eggs fetch, do you reckon-” 

Varric didn’t tear his eyes from the deck and the commotion on it, but the orders came naturally. “Fire on the Red Iron. Aim for the gun deck.” 

Hawke watched Fenris turn on his heel and stalk away before she turned her bright, inquisitive eyes back to him. “Sea witches aren’t real, but she’s not Ceasg or Finfolk, is she? Too short.” 

“Finfolk are short sometimes.” He answered neutrally, trying to hide the gears turning in his mind from Hawke’s keen gaze. 

The human scoffed. “Finfolk can be short, but not short as dwarves. And if _she_ was doing that... well, if she’s Finfolk I’ll run around naked as ‘Bela.” 

Like Hawke needed an excuse to take her damn clothes off, but Varric didn’t have it in him to point that out. All he could think of was the musty old warehouse where his father stored his meager, cheap wares. Varric remembered the endless days lingering outside the office, first for his father, then his brother. He recalled, clear as a bell, Bartrand’s meaty fist diving into a crate and retrieving the shiniest, silkiest fur coat he’d ever seen. 

_“I heard the merchant say it was selkie fur, one caught and killed off the coast of Tevinter, brother. Think how much coin it’d be worth if it came with one of the beasts themselves? Wouldn’t you like to see it?”_ _  
_ _“And you said I need to get my head out of the clouds. A seal is a seal, anything else is finely crafted bullshit.”_

Myths. Legends. A mysterious city under the sea populated by beautiful, shapeshifting dwarven women? Varric wasn’t a fool. But... “Prepare to board. Make sure nobody hurts that girl, Hawke.” 

“Maker’s ass, Varric. You _know_ what she is. You and your damn stories, why-” 

Before Hawke could really begin her tirade, the cannons below rumbled with all the power of controlled thunder. Varric watched them blow holes into the deck of the Red Iron with grim satisfaction. Behind him, Isabela whooped into the air, thrilled with the first sign of action. “I don’t know what she is.” Which was true. Because she _couldn’t_ be what he thought she was. “But you’ve got a promise to keep to a damn witch. In case you forgot.” 

The Witch of the Wilds claimed they’d find power here, but she hadn’t told them _what_ or, perhaps, _who_. Which, Varric grumbled internally, was precisely why one didn’t make deals with witches in the first place. 

The crew surrounding the fallen woman began to disperse with haste, all except one man who stayed beside her kneeling form. Varric could hear their shouts, observing their haste to grab weapons as a second round of cannon fire from Bianca shattered the deck below their feet. He forced himself to look away and meet Hawke’s level gaze. She wilted under his scrutiny, too-long limbs collapsing into themselves. “Fine. Save the pretty redhead for you, but if she bites me I’m gonna take it out of your chest hair.” 

Hawke rotated on one leg, swaggering off with joyful confidence, already yelling for Carver to grab his gear and hollering at Bela to bring the ship within boarding distance. Varric let his eyes be drawn back to the opposing ship’s deck. 

And found the spot where his redhead had been _empty_. 

“Shit.” He mumbled to himself, withdrawing his own pistol and checking the chamber. He had a feeling like ants chewing the inside his gut, one that didn’t bode well. His skin felt tight, itchy. This was going to be trouble, no matter what, but if he’d stumbled upon a Selkie, of all things? Well. At least a younger, imaginative part of himself would be pleased.

The rest of him was far too old for this shit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Way to go and make a _terrible_ first impression, Varric.


	3. Two Shots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria and Dorian's escape attempt ends in a single shot.  
> Varric's encounter with Worthy ends the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for bearing with me as I took some time off for family things. I'm so glad to be back to writing, and I hope this chapter was worth waiting for! There are some mild _specific_ trigger warnings to mention here:
> 
> Discussion of claustrophobia and being locked in a chest  
> Vivid descriptions of a survivor of violence (bruises, blood spatter, etc)  
> DA-typical depictions of violence

Maria couldn’t breathe, no matter how much sea air she tried to inhale to clean the dust from her lungs. She spat out onto the deck in between coughing, but it wasn’t helping. Neither was Dorian’s steely grip on her arms tugging her up impatiently. She swatted at him ineffectively but the human appeared undeterred by her reluctance to move. In fact, when she didn’t hustle quickly enough for him, he simply dragged her up by her waist. “Venhedis, we need to _move_.” 

Easy for him to say, and she wanted to tell him so, but even before she started choking on her own breath that wasn’t an option. Instead she managed a rude gesture she’d been so helpfully taught by her pirate captors. 

“I don’t need that lip, I’m _trying_ to save your life.” Dorian explained, a professor scolding his unruly pupil.

_Save her life_. Maria shot a shocked look up from under her lashes, saw his handsome face lined with fierce determination. Ancestors, he meant it. His chance for escape had come, and he really meant to take her with him, to _free_ her from this unending hell, even if doing so meant increasing the odds of failing. 

“Your coat is in his cabin, yes?” Dorian asked quickly, but he didn’t wait for her tentative nod of confirmation. “In a chest?” 

A chest. As big as she was, and deep enough to shove her into. The captain had, once, and left her there for nearly a day as punishment when she first came on board. She remembered screaming until her voice went hoarse, the threat of it since always enough to make her break out into a cold sweat. 

Maria looked, fearful, over her shoulder. She spotted several unfamiliar figures on deck, a blur of color and steel that she couldn’t quite get a good look at. So, the Red Iron had _already_ been boarded. Perhaps, if she was lucky, it would quickly be sunk. 

If she was particularly fortunate, Worthy would drown in the depths just like she always wished. 

A woman’s laugh, oddly out of place, rang out triumphantly over the sound of another cannonball splintering wood of the gun deck beneath her feet. Dorian dragged her to the stairs leading below, nearly lifting her off his feet in his hurry. 

The cabin itself usually stood locked and guarded, but in the chaos, the crew posted outside evaporated to prepare for battle. Dorian reached for the knob and Maria thought, certainly, they’d be foiled where they stood. 

The door swung open instead and Dorian dragged her inside. As they always did, her eyes landed on the chest at the foot of the bed, drawn to the battered container with the heavy lock. Dorian finally released his grip on her and strode forward with confidence, reaching into his inside pocket. 

“Did I tell you my true passion, my fiery little friend, was to practice alchemy?” How Dorian could sound so calm and conversational as the ship rocked with incoming cannon fire and the air rang with gunshots was beyond her. “I studied among the best, I assure you. The naval commission, while interesting, held no real passion for me.” 

The tiny vial he withdrew looked like nothing Maria ever saw before. He examined it critically for a second before pouring it gingerly over the lock, careful that it didn’t splash on his skin while he continued to ramble. “Ingredients have been hard to come by, but this should do the trick.” 

At first, nothing happened. She almost gave up hope before the liquid on the metal began to bubble, some sort of reaction occurring between the substance and lock. A putrid scent of smelting rose up, made her wrinkle her nose and make a tiny sound of dismay. Dorian beamed, pleased. “Have I ever told you I’m a genius?”

She wished she could tell him to shut up, but before she could even figure out the proper gesture to use, the ship listed sharply to the left. Maria grabbed at the door frame to keep herself steady, but Dorian wasn’t so lucky. He scrambled to grab at the heavy bed frame, clearly wary of grabbing the melting lock on the chest. Maria heard the water rushing into the hull, putting an urgent time limit on this escape effort before they too met their end in the ocean. 

And yet, the sound of it mesmerized her. The water was _so close_ , right beneath her very feet. Worthy hadn’t allowed her to feel the sea on her skin in months, the closest she got was the spray on her face. The call to dive in, even in this clumsy shape, was near irresistible. A part of her watched with vague concern while Dorian crumpled unsteadily. The rest of her demanded she turn and run to the water, run _home._

“I knew I’d find you here.” 

Worthy’s snarl turned the song in her blood to ice. She whirled, blocking the door with her small form as much as she could. _Lie_. She needed to lie, quickly. “I don’t have my magic, I can’t fight. If I had my coat, I could save you, I promise I will.” 

Worthy had a bleeding gash above his brow, his eye swelling shut. He glared at her, lips curling in a ferocious grin. “I know what you’d do to me girl, if you were able. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll learn the price of failing me.” 

He wasn’t wrong. If she could, she’d cut him to bits with his own cutlass. She stood, staring at him, until he growled one command. “Move out of my way.” 

She couldn’t disobey, but she tried until her muscles burned and turned her inevitable obedience into a stiff jerk of her body out of the door, exposing the room to his critical gaze. He stepped inside warily, as if the noise of battle was barely even a concern. Maria’s distraction in the door gave Dorian time to hide, apparently, because she could see no trace of him in the room. Still, Worthy’s eyes landed on the chest and this hissing, bubbling lock fast on it’s way to becoming a pile of molten metal on the cabin floor. 

“I know I told you not to touch this.” Worthy growled. “So who has?” 

“I didn’t need to touch it.” She lied through her teeth, desperately trying to keep Worthy’s attention on her. “Loopholes, remember?” 

“Tell me, wench.” Worthy ordered. “Where is the bastard?” 

She didn’t know. Thank her ancestors, she didn’t know. “I don’t-” 

Dorian took that moment to strike. She saw his white clad arm fling itself from beneath the bed and grab Worthy’s stout ankle, yanking with all his strength and sending the sturdy dwarf tumbling onto the tilting cabin floor. 

Dorian emerged, dirt and who knew what else staining his crisp white coat. He jabbed a pointed elbow in Worthy’s abdomen, his other hand quickly reaching for one of Worthy’s pistols. Dorian managed to get his fingers around it, but a solid blow to the head caused him to fumble and drop it, the weapon skittering across the floor. 

Maria rushed forward, but Worthy was ready for her act of defiance. A solid arm snagged her blasted skirt, tearing her down to the cabin floor just out of reach of the gun. “DON’T MOVE!” Worthy bellowed, locking her limbs in place, helpless to assist. 

Dorian needed her help _desperately_. She watched in frozen horror as he tried to find something else in his coat, something to even the odds, but Worthy’s blade shined in the dim light of the cabin. Maria opened her mouth to scream, to warn Dorian if she could do nothing else, but all she succeeded in doing was choking on the words. Worthy’s lingering order to _never_ speak to her only friend again made her cough, losing the meager air she’d filled her dust-dry lungs with. 

The blade moved through the air, and in her horror, Maria could see every nick, every stain on the steel with complete clarity. With deadly precision, born of years of bar brawls and looting, Worthy sliced toward the back of Dorian’s knee. The blood bloomed bright on the fine cotton breeches and Dorian cried out, lashing with a fist easily blocked by Worthy’s broad arm. 

The pirate captain gained his feet with a speed only Maria, truly, knew he possessed. The heel of his boot came down on Dorian’s arm, something within it snapping so loudly Maria swore everyone would hear it above the fever pitch of battle on the deck. 

Dorian couldn’t stand, whatever the blade had severed hobbled him too much, the only thing he could do was push himself onto one knee. The look on his face, still dark with rage and pride, made her heart tighten. Worthy pulled his second pistol, aiming at Dorian’s face. 

“NO!” Maria barely recognized her own plea. “Don’t! Don’t hurt him. Please, don’t hurt him. Leave him.” 

Worthy’s thick finger rested on the trigger, but he didn’t pull it back. Instead, his lips lifted into a cruel grin. “Don’t worry girl. _I_ won’t hurt him.” 

Dorian bared his teeth, the quip flying even as she railed internally, begging him to just be quiet for once. “Hah! And here I’ve been thinking you were an unreasonable sort of bastard.” 

Worthy kept his eyes on Dorian’s form, grinning madly with a busted lip turning his mouth pink. “Get up and come here, girl.” 

She moved with all the elegance of a beached whale, her limbs numb. She felt as if she stood above the scene, watching her body pick itself up off the deck, legs taking halting, trembling steps toward Worthy. It wasn’t her arm he tugged, but a doll’s, it wasn’t her back pressed against his chest again, it was someone else's. 

Except his meaty hand wrapped around hers, pressed the pistol into it, and she couldn’t ignore the sick weight of the weapon in her hand, the one still pointed towards Dorian’s defiant, _beloved_ face. 

She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, before she whispered. “No. Not this. _Please_.” 

“At the mercy of a beautiful woman.” Dorian’s humor had a dark weight behind it, a force large enough to drag them all down to the deeps. “I wish I could trade places with someone who would undoubtedly enjoy it more.” 

Worthy ignored him, his voice low in her ear. “I want you to remember this the next time you think you can get away from me, wench. You are nothing but a weapon, and you belong to me now.” 

“I won’t try to escape again.” She promised through gritted teeth, opening her eyes to stare into the abyss of Dorian’s. “Just leave him here.” 

The ship listed again beneath her feet, but even the sea couldn’t help her escape the chain tying her to Worthy like an anchor. He continued, heedless of her pleas. “You’re right. Because you’ll remember this, remember him bleeding out the same way your fool man did.” 

She sucked in a breath around the sharp stab of pain, struggling to pull her magic even as she knew it was no use. Even if it was there, and it’d been taken by the dust thrown by the other ship, she couldn’t use it. She was a gun with Worthy’s finger on her trigger, the same way her trembling finger rested on the one in her hand. 

“Maria.” Her name in Dorian’s soft, gentle voice brought her to tears, the saltwater coming with a force she couldn’t contain. “Don’t _ever_ stop fighting him.” 

Worthy’s command came in the form of a snarl, came at the same time the ship pitched roughly to the side. “Shoot him in the heart.” 

Her body, battered and broken, responded in an instant. 

* * *

“Venhedis!”

Even in the chaos of pitched battle, Fenris’s displeased tone rang out above the clash of steel. With a grunt, Varric withdrew his cutlass from one of the fine, upstanding crew members of the Red Iron before lifting his eyes to search the deck.

It didn’t take him long to find the sleek, dark shape of the elf with his back to Hawke’s. Fenris’s blade moved at a speed that rendered his arm a blur. For her part, Hawke thrust and parried like she’d been born with blade in hand. Not for the first time, Varric mused that they certainly made a striking murder-happy couple. If, he supposed, they ever got to the _coupling_ part instead of stopping at murder. 

“The ship is sinking.” Fenris growled between the ring of steel. 

Hawke shot an infuriating grin over her shoulder at Fenris’s back before she drawled her answer. “That is, typically, what we aim for.” 

Fenris lashed out with a kick that sent a human sprawling before he shoved his blade through his chest. “Perhaps.” He grunted. “We should find whatever you are looking for and move on before we also meet our end.” 

Hawke sighed, affecting an air of weary martyrdom despite the amusement glittering in her eyes. “Just like you to rush through the good bits, Fen.” 

At that moment, Hawke’s electric blue gaze jumped to him and she gestured to the surrounding ship with her cutlass. “What, _exactly_ , are we looking for beyond your red-headed damsel?” 

_Nothing_. If she was what his gut screamed she was, _she_ was what they came for. But before he could conjure a suitable answer for Hawke, the ship lurched violently to one side. Thankfully, his own Dwarven mass prevented him from going sprawling with several other sailors, both his crew and the Red Iron’s. Even Hawke, sea steady as any human he ever met, very nearly toppled over. Her momentum was stopped only by one lean, tanned arm flung around her waist. 

One could say the elf had just swept Hawke off her feet, but the quip died in his throat. The sounds of battle had ceased while everyone scrambled to find their footing, leaving no sound but the ocean around them. 

So the gunshot from below sounded like a cannon. It echoed off the timbers of the ship for only a heartbeat before being drowned out by a piercing scream that turned into a heart wrenching wail. Every hair on Varric’s chest stood straight up in response to the primal sound and he whirled quickly on his feet, searching for the entrance to the hold. 

A brute of a dwarf stood between him and it, one so spectacularly ugly that for a moment he felt a sharp stab of pity for whatever poor woman had birthed him. But even while that thought flitted through his head, he noticed something absolutely chilling. 

Worthy’s crew had _no reaction_ to that sound, which meant one of two things, both of which could be distinctly possible. The first, that they lacked any empathy whatsoever, or the second… that this wasn’t the first time they’d heard it. 

Before he could pull his own pistol, a shot from behind him pierced the air. He felt it wing past him before it thudded solidly into the beast standing guard over the entrance. The poor bastard barely had time to raise his own weapon before he keeled over, clutching the fatal wound. 

“Go! _I’ll_ handle this!” Hawke yelled into the air before the man even hit the deck. Varric didn’t even spare a second to glance over his shoulder and take in her fierce determination. She was, after all, the best damn first mate he could have asked for. 

He swung into action, tucking his blade close to his body while he ducked into the small hole in the deck, taking the rickety stairs without care for whether they’d actually support his weight. That terrifying cry had tapered off, but the sobbing following in its wake was louder below. The sounds of battle resumed up above, but Varric barely allowed himself to consider it. His eyes adjusted to the gloomy darkness, searching for the source of those desperate tears. 

“ _Quiet_. Or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Varric recognized the voice immediately, even laced with cruelty and threat. Worthy didn’t have the stones to speak to anyone of any means like that, but he certainly seemed like the kind of sniveling coward who’d kick someone weaker than him in a moment, given the opportunity. 

From within the gloom, past the stacked crates of provisions and stolen loot, the sound of feminine distress vanished far too quickly. Varric stepped forward, just as Worthy himself appeared. 

Varric raised his pistol to pin Worthy with it just as the bastard shoved a smaller figure in front of him so hard she tripped over the hem of her long skirt, careening into a crate that knocked the breath right out of her. Her wind tangled crimson hair covered most of her face, all except one bright eye still wet with tears. It fixed on him and she froze, either in shock or horror, he couldn’t tell. 

Varric froze too, but it was _definitely_ in shock. 

Sweet Andraste’s tits, if she wasn’t the most stunning woman he’d ever seen, he’d eat his own unfinished manuscript. She certainly resembled a paragon of dwarven beauty, plump and pleasing in all the right places, and although her face was splotchy with emotion and tracked with tears he could tell her features were striking in their intensity. 

But the more important thing was that the blood spattered over her white blouse didn’t appear to be hers, at any rate he couldn’t see any trace of a bullet wound. What he could see, unfortunately, were bruises lining pale skin. Her ripped blouse revealed a shoulder marred with finger-shaped splotches in various shades of blue and yellow and her cheek swelled as if somebody had backhanded her with a meaty fist. The small fingers digging into the water swollen wood of the crate shook. 

Well, there went any qualms about killing the opposing pirate outright. The only regret he’d have would be that Varric didn’t have enough time to repay Worthy for the suffering he’d clearly enjoyed doling out. It would be worth it though, if only to make sure the woman trembling before him managed to survive this.

With that thought in mind, he tore his gaze from her to the bastard using her as a shield. With the woman between them, Varric couldn’t be sure a shot fired wouldn’t end up embedded in her instead of where it so _richly_ belonged. Worthy could too easily tug her into position in the second it would take to pull the trigger. 

“Call your seadogs off, Tethras.” Worthy growled. “And we’ll talk this over like reasonable men of business.” 

“Glad to.” Varric offered with a bold grin of his own, one eye on the pistol in Worthy’s hand. He had two more tucked into his coat, but was the one in his hand the one he had just shot? If so, he wouldn’t have had time to reload it, which meant that Varric’s own chest was a bit safer. Judging by the fact Worthy hadn’t come out shooting, it was a safe bet. “Let’s get the lady taken care of and you can come up to my ship, yours is a bit underwater at the moment.” 

“She’s no lady.” Worthy’s eyes lit up with a fierce possessive gleam. “But you knew that, you bastard. Heard you were slippery as a fish.” 

“Been called worse than a fish.” He took a risk and lowered the pistol, tossing it up in the air and catching it between his fingers in a gesture that breathed nonchalance. If Worthy thought him a fish, all the better. He’d be surprised to find a shark instead. “What do you say? The Belle Bianca is a real treat for a _gentleman_ like you.” 

The scorn underlying his tone was a clear taunt, but for a second he thought Worthy too thick to pick up on it. All he needed was the bastard to step out from behind his pretty little hostage, if he did that…

Before Varric could even complete the thought, Worthy’s free hand dove for the sash holding his two other guns. The other pirate thought himself a quick draw, but Varric had been cheating cards too long to not notice the subtle tell of a man pulling an ace from his sleeve. Before the muzzle of the weapon even appeared, Varric was ready. 

He waited till the last moment, shifting to the left just enough so that when the gun finally made its grand appearance, it was just a quick twist that buried him behind the ill gotten cargo stuffing the hold. He only caught the barest hint of muzzle flash before he heard the bullet thunk harmlessly into the wood between him and Worthy. 

Hidden from his foe, Varric allowed himself a vicious grin before raising his voice to shout over the sound of another cannon ball hitting the decks below. “You wanna dance, you son of a bitch?”

“You talk too much, Tethras!” 

So he’d been told. Reaching into his pocket, his fingers closed around the thin glass vial, one of Anders’s best damn tricks beyond stitching them all up every second week. “Then let’s dance, Worthy.” 

He whipped his form around the crate, tossing the thin glass as hard as he could onto the deck between him and Worthy. The second the contents were exposed to air, they sparked into a screen of thick, endless fog. In the space of two heartbeats, the hold was full of it, and would be for long enough to render Worthy’s guns useless. 

Although he did feel bad it sent the poor creature in between them into a fit of coughing that must have racked her frame. At the same time, it was quite a bonus. 

_Keep making noise, beautiful. I need to know where you are._

Like he’d had the same thought, Worthy hissed into the sea-scented fog. “Quiet!” 

The coughing ceased with a noise like someone being quietly strangled, a hiccup of resistance before the inevitable falling limp. His anger sparked, growing into a growling beast beneath his chest, even as dread bathed him in icy sweat. 

_They say a selkie can’t disobey an order, even if it costs their very life._

Which _would_ be interesting, if the creatures weren’t _imaginary_. Varric thrust that thought from his head, diving around the stacked crates and silently paused, straining his ears to catch a sound that didn’t belong to the sinking ship or the pitched battle above. He holstered his pistol and raised the cutlass, searching the smoke.

He stepped forward, a board creaking beneath his feet, and Varric swore internally. If _his_ ship ever devolved into such disrepair, he’d-

Worthy’s shadow lunged from the left, Varric’s steel meeting his in a hollow clang. Another pistol, hopefully the _last_ one, in his right hand. Worthy brought it up, aiming a killing blow that would leave Varric with an unbecoming piercing.

And if Varric Tethras needed to go, someday, he planned on leaving a rather more attractive corpse behind. 

He put his weight into a shove that nearly led to Worthy losing his feet, the pistol clattering harmlessly to the floor. In a quick lunge, Varric kicked it into the smog. Removing the most deadly weapon gave Worthy time to steady his bulk and roar, charging. Varric blocked the incoming slash, but couldn’t stop his back from hitting the hull of the ship behind him. Worthy’s face ended up so close to his own, Varric could smell rotten ale coming off his breath, see the nasty bits stuck between yellowed teeth. 

“She’s mine, Tethras.” Spittle flew and Varric added ‘bathe’ to his list of things he desperately needed to do. “ _MINE._ ” 

“Then you’ll have to do better than this.” Varric grinned, watched the expression work it’s magic just long enough to bewilder the brute. 

Then he brought his booted foot hard into the other captain’s shin, throwing his elbow to his ribs. Worthy’s own glancing blow landed against his shoulder, not enough to slow him down, but surely enough to leave a tender spot he’d regret in the morning. 

Using the force of his own momentum, Varric leapt up onto the nearest crate, needing the distance to draw his own gun and finish the bastard right where he stood. Unfortunately, Worthy moved a bit quicker than Varric anticipated. The other man’s arm caught him at just the right angle to send him sprawling on his ass on the other side of the crates. The breath knocked out of him left him dazed for only a second before he rolled to the side, just in time to miss the cutting blade that likely shaved off a sliver of chest hair on it’s way into the boards. 

He kicked his short legs out, sending Worthy sprawling beside him. The man collapsed like a ton of bricks, giving Varric the perfect opportunity to strike. His grip on his cutlass didn’t waver while he rolled, burying it between the other man’s rips in a smooth thrust. 

“Maybe.” Varric huffed. “You should take some dancing lessons.” 

The first rule of fighting, really, was don’t gloat until your opponent is dead. Varric, of course, never followed those rules. If anything, the bleeding stab wound made Worthy as mad as a trapped bear. The bastard bellowed his outrage loud enough to drown out the sound of cannon fire, the rush of the ocean, and the clang of steel above their heads. Varric ripped his cutlass out of the man’s chest just in time to deflect a wild swing of the other man’s blade. 

He hadn’t realized Worthy had another weapon hidden on him. The edge of the dagger just caught Varric’s coat, surprising him and tearing through the fine fabric, leaving a rip blooming crimson around the ragged edges. Varric snarled against the pain, slamming the other man’s wrist to the floor, even though Worthy stubbornly kept hold of the weapon. 

“What makes _you_ think you can hold onto her?” Worthy asked, breathless with rage, his warm blood seeping into Varric’s coat as they struggled. “I know your story, Tethras.” 

“I’m flattered.” Varric spat between his teeth. 

Then, because it seemed the most logical thing to do, Varric thrust his hard skull upwards, catching Worthy right in his bulbous nose. The blood sprouted immediately and the blade dropped from his hand, leaving only the dagger.

It wasn’t the best position to use a pistol, but he’d take his damn chances before Worthy regained his equilibrium enough to keep fighting, especially with his smoke screen vanishing. Varric reached for his sash, fingers closing around his gun. 

Worthy never saw it coming. His eyes had locked on something above them, his mouth opening to issue the final command he never finished. “Help me, you who-” 

Varric placed the muzzle flush against the other man’s temple and pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back on our bi-weekly updates ;-) I'd apologize about the cliffhanger, but those that know me are well aware I'm _really_ not sorry.


	4. An Illusion of Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria and Varric finally come face to face and find that first impressions do, in fact, matter.

Some men took forever to die after a shot to the head, Maker knew why. Varric heard some tall tales of poor bastards who actually survived, walking around with iron embedded in their brain. The poor sods acted a bit odd, but kept living despite the Maker’s best attempt to get them a little sooner. Lead, of course, killed you no matter what if you didn’t have a doctor on board. It poisoned your blood and turned you green before you expired, painfully, begging Andraste to have mercy. 

Varric kinda wished, in the half second after firing his shot, that Worthy would linger a little bit. Maybe some flailing, muscles spasming as the bullet chewed through the space between his ears. It still wouldn’t be justice, poetic or otherwise, but dammit if anyone’s last moments deserved to be lived in agony...

But the blast of the pistol marked the moment the light left the bearded man’s eyes. Without fanfare, Worthy dropped his solid bulk right over half of Varric’s form. His dead weight reeked of rum and piss, causing Varric to wince. There wasn’t enough soap on the Belle Bianca to _ever_ get his coat clean again. With a grunt, he shoved the dwarf off of him and pushed himself to his feet, glaring at the blood and gore staining his sleeves. 

It wasn’t until he straightened that Varric saw Worthy’s last words had been directed to the woman pressed into the shadows of the hull, eyes fixed on him in mute horror. For good reason, honestly, he’d just _shot_ a man in front of her, hardly the way to impress a lady. He couldn’t expect her to know she hadn’t ended up in a _worse_ position than the one she’d just been in.

The looming threat of Worthy must have dimmed her presence when he first saw her, because now that he’d spotted her again, he couldn’t look away. His chest tightened and something within him stirred, urging him to look on. Just to make sure she was only bruised and pale, truly, he needed to look for that reason only. It had nothing to do with the magnetic pull he felt or the stirring fantasy of a grateful damsel swooning into his arms.

Nothing to do with that _at all_.

He traced her form again, frowning when he took in that ripped blouse and her exposed shoulder. Seeing where his attention fell, she quickly grabbed for the torn fabric and hitched it up, trying to cover her skin. 

That broke the trance her beauty inspired, but the pull didn’t diminish. In fact, if anything, he thought it grew stronger with each passing heartbeat. The roar of the ocean sounded closer, it must have been the water rushing into the hull, so close he could smell it like he’d been submerged. 

Time to get back to _his_ ship, then. 

"Hey." Varric took one step forward and watched the creature flinch farther away, loose red hair obscuring part of her face. Stormy eyes followed his every movement from beneath that tumbling, beautiful mane of crimson. His red flag atop a glorious figure that would bring any man gladly to his knees. 

He stilled immediately, deliberately holstering his pistol at his side and lowering the cutlass in his hand. He couldn't do anything about his gory, blood spattered appearance or the dead bastard currently bleeding out between them, but somehow he doubted she minded Worthy's blood staining the hem of her plain wool skirt. She watched him in wary silence until he spoke again. "You're safe now." 

He held out his empty hand, a plea to draw the skittish woman closer and out of this damned shithole. "You've got a family, right? They must be missing you something fierce, sweetheart. I can get you out of here and back where you belong." 

She didn't budge, and Varric really didn't have time to argue with her. From somewhere up above he heard a piercing shout, his name, Hawke, looking for him. Varric turned to holler back and let her know he was safe, taking his eyes off the woman.

He should have known a cornered, frightened thing usually lashed out at the first hand offered. The whisper of metal in the air alerted him to his mistake in the nick of time. He flung his cutlass out to block the blow that would have been fatal had it found its mark in his jugular.

Her eyes widened in surprise at the carefully calm and genial smile on the face he turned back to her, ignoring Worthy's cutlass in her fist. "Thanks beautiful, but I shaved this morning." 

With her hair finally pushed away from her face, even a fool would see the bright flash of fury in her eyes. It took a slightly more observant man to note the slicked points of her lashes, from tears, and the busted lip well on it’s way to healing. Up close, her general paleness seemed far more alarming than at his first glance. With hair like that, ‘fair’ was probably her standard descriptor, but she seemed almost translucent. 

In Varric’s opinion, she needed sunshine, a drink, and more than one decent meal. 

In her opinion, what she needed was the blood of a _second_ pirate captain staining the deck. If he had any doubt of the murderous swing of her thoughts, it was safely extinguished by the next wild swing of the cutlass. She moved without technique, but the terrible storm of rage behind her arm was deadly enough without it. He grunted with effort when he caught her second swing, parrying it down safely. “We got off on the wrong foot, sweetheart. Allow me to-” 

He knew the word choice was wrong when she twisted her whole body to attack him from the other side, a hacking slash more suited to a broad sword than a cutlass. He dodged, but it took a bit more effort than he anticipated. The determination behind her attack spoke of a woman whose spirit hadn’t been broken by the shitty circumstances she found herself in, the same way the blazing anger lit her up from the inside out. Varric allowed himself a small surge of pride in the strange, stunning woman. 

And maybe just a _hint_ of aroused interest. He was only a man, after all, and he _certainly_ wouldn’t act on it.

But he could appreciate it.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” The cutlass rang out as it struck his, metal hitting unyielding metal, nearly the same sparkling color as her eyes. “Captain Varric Tethras, author, sailor, and-” 

She stepped to the left to after another wild swing, but the ship pitched again sharply as she moved and she staggered to regain her balance. He flung an arm out easily to steady her and quirked his lips into his most charming smile. “Occasionally, pirate.” 

She wrenched herself away from him like he’d burned her with the slight touch of his fingers on her waist, whirling on him, chest heaving and eyes wild. For a brief, startling moment, Varric swore the sea roared _his_ name from beneath him. Just as suddenly, it was gone, leaving nothing but the panting woman staring at him.

“Don’t touch me.” She ordered through trembling lips gone pale with exertion. 

He swung his arms out to his side so she could see both hands, including the one loosely gripping his blade. “As the lady wishes.”

In her pale eyes, he saw his hulking shadow reflected back, one that looked just like the shape of the man bleeding out to their left. Her reaction to the brush of his hand spoke volumes, and none of them anything Varric wanted to read.

Ignoring the urge to turn and pop a few more bullets into Worthy’s skull for good measure, Varric took a step away from the skittish woman and gave her the kindest, most sympathetic smile he could manage. “You’re safe now. Why don’t we get off this termite infested pile of driftwood and onto a real ship _before_ this one sinks?” 

Her eyes flicked from his blade to his face, back to his blade. He wished he could read the thoughts swimming behind those gorgeous eyes, but he got the funny feeling he’d succeed in seeing the bottom of the ocean first. She blinked once, twice, then seemed to collapse into herself. Her shoulders slumped and her chin dipped, giving the impression those eyes were filling with tears even as she hid behind that curtain of red hair again. 

And dammit if anything could pull on his heartstrings _more_. He didn’t dare step forward, but he slowly extended the arm not holding his blade, reaching out gloved fingers. “I swear on my ship, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. You’ve got my word.”

Even in his wildest dreams, he never pictured she’d come to him. One heartbeat was all it took, her quick steps steady on the tilting deck. Her small fingers, nails chewed down to the quick, came to rest in his palm. The urge to close his fist around her hand became near dizzying, but he resisted as she took another step into his orbit. 

She looked up from beneath her lashes, capturing his eyes with a gaze that bordered on reverent, a maiden rescued looking at her hero, the dragon dead on the ground between them. She tipped her chin up, and a part of Varric allowed himself to hope just for one tender kiss from those soft lips. 

The rest of him, a far more realistic and cynical part, knew this change came _far_ too easily. She was good, he’d give her that. Near irresistible, in fact. But, he hadn’t forgotten the weapon in her other hand. 

Neither had she. 

The savagery of the strike still shocked him. She lashed out like _he_ was as great a threat to her as the dead man had been and a part of him wondered if that wild rage in her eyes wasn’t just the blazing hint of madness. He’d seen people crack under less than what this poor woman could have been subjected to. 

The awkward angle meant he couldn’t deflect her cleanly away like he had, especially with her fueled by ferocious hatred. It took a push of his own strength to parry the blow. The impact sent ripples through his arm regardless. Unfortunately, that same strength had the effect of knocking his pretty, but deranged, attacker back into a crate. Guilt chewed at him as she pushed herself away, blade held out again to continue this _useless_ dance. 

Impatience laced Varric’s voice. “For the love of the bleedin’ Maker. _Stop_ attacking me!” 

To his own ears, the command sounded much louder than it should have. It stopped the frightened thing in her tracks, nicked, stained steel half-raised to continue. Her hand shook on the grip of the weapon, her mouth opened in a snarl, and her eyes blazed even _more_ defiantly. The sound of everything else dropped away, the roar of the ocean, the sound of shouting from above. There was nothing but him, his voice still ringing unnaturally in the air, and the mutinous woman staring at him. 

Worthy spoke to her only in commands, and she’d done everything he asked.

_Because a selkie couldn’t resist the man who held her leash._

Insanity. Impossible, really, but Varric had to know. He had to be _certain_. 

“Drop that.” He pointed his eyes to the saber in her hand, but before he could even get a good look, her death grip loosened. The weapon slipped from her hand effortlessly even as his voice still echoed so unnaturally in the small, tight space. It clattered to the boards before he could draw breath, louder than the gunshot that ended Worthy’s miserable life, but not _nearly_ as loud as the silent scream written on every defiant line of the redhead’s features when she tipped her chin up again. 

Shit. _Shit._

Varric scrambled for words, for the first time as mute as the creature before him seemed to be. Then, before _anything_ came to him, she turned in a neat circle and fled into the bowels of the hold. 

"VARRIC!"

Hawke's furious, and frightened, shout of alarm startled him into action.

"I need another minute!" He hollered back, ignoring the dismayed voice following him into the darkness as he chased his red flag. 

"Blighted _hell_ Varric how difficult can retrieving one woman be?" 

* * *

For a second, Maria had been free. 

It only lasted one glorious, perfect moment. In that space of a single heartbeat, she tasted the sea on her tongue, felt the roar of the ocean in her veins, the cool embrace of a mother welcoming her home. 

Then it fell away, lost, as her chains landed solidly in the brutish fists of another pirate. Maria wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wished the gun that fired had been aimed at _her_ head instead of Worthy’s. Death, after all, came with a certain kind of freedom too. _Anything_ was better than this cycle of violence occurring over and over again until she died of longing for her sea. 

She would rather he struck her down that issue that final command, the one that brought the light of understanding to his slack jawed face. _Stop fighting_. _Drop that_. She knew what the next ones would be, she knew too well.

_Come here. Take that off. Drown those men. Open your mouth._

She couldn’t do it. She’d rather drown in the ocean pouring into the hold below, faster with every moment, so close and still lost to her. Or, perhaps, _she_ was the one lost. It didn’t matter, she guessed, in the end. So she ran from the blood spattered dwarf, back towards Worthy’s cabin, the only direction she had left. 

It would be fitting if she drowned next to the friend she’d been forced to murder. A perfect ending to a short, brutal life. She stumbled through the door hanging ajar, clinging to the frame as the ship tilted precariously. Dorian lay where he’d fallen, skin pallid beneath his bronze coloring, eyes closed. Blood pooled around him, dark scarlet, although she could hardly see the whole picture through the tears blurring her vision. She flung herself to her knees by his side, the words falling from her numb lips, the command to no longer speak to him severed along with Worthy’s miserable life. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I-” 

As the words tumbled out, she reached for his hand, twining their fingers together. He still felt warm, the iron scent of his blood in the air, but enough of it lingering in him still to keep him soft and malleable under her shaking fingers. 

And at first, she mistook the twitch of his hand as just a symptom of her trembling. But as the first broken sob passed through her body, she felt him squeeze her hand, his eyes opening to narrow slits like he searched for her. He mumbled something, it could have been her name, but she couldn’t tell. 

Her stomach dropped and she lurched towards the bloody wound in his jacket, stopped only by the curse from behind her. “Andraste’s tits. What happened here?” 

She expected him to follow her, but the sound of his rich, graveled voice still froze her in the act of reaching. It took a second for the ice to thaw, when he made no other sound she kept her face pointed towards Dorian’s, ignoring the other captain. 

She undid the shining brass buttons as deftly as she could before trying to pull back the bloody white cotton. As she peeled it away, Dorian groaned, a low sound like an animal caught in a trap. Maria’s heart stuttered in her chest. “Shhh.” She whispered. “I’m here. It’s okay, salroka.” 

The creak of a floorboard made her wrench her hand quickly away, staring at the man who dropped down into a crouch on Dorian’s right side. Underneath the blood spattered on his face, his brow drooped in exhaustion. While she watched, wary, his thick fingers reached out to continue pulling back the stained coat. 

“Shot?” He asked quietly, examining the mess of mangled skin and blood. “By Worthy?” 

She swallowed her dread and refused to answer, tightening her grip on Dorian’s hand. Captain _Varric Tethras_ didn’t appear bothered by her silence, taking it for silent affirmation. He simply frowned. “He a friend of yours?” 

Her only friend, but she’d be damned if she told him anything. “Leave us alone.” 

“I leave you alone, you’re gonna drown and he’s gonna bleed out before he even has to worry about whether he can swim.” His voice remained calm, but urgency prickled underneath the smooth facade. She wondered what other dark things she’d find in it, eventually. Maria refused to look up. Refused to acknowledge him. Let them drown, let them bleed, neither of them could be saved anyway. It was too late. 

“Look here, beautiful.” 

The unexpected command jerked her chin up and away from Dorian’s graying complexion to the Captain. She wanted to start screaming, wished she had _any_ magic left to heal Dorian, if she could, or at the very least murder this man staring at her. 

He flinched from her gaze. “Maker’s ass, I’m sorry. I’ll… Listen, we’ll talk about it. Just help me out here, okay? There’s a doctor on my ship, he can patch up your friend. The bullet missed his heart, lucky bastard, so-” 

“I missed?” She choked on the question, the bile it brought up her throat. She couldn’t believe it, there was _so_ much blood.

This pirate’s intelligent features lit up with comprehension, his brow furrowing. He shot a thunderous look back out the door in the direction of Worthy’s corpse before swinging those lively eyes back to her. She watched him weigh the words carefully and a part of her withered in defeat. 

This was not a man to leave loopholes in his orders, no brutish thug like Worthy who stumbled through life on the power of his fists and gun. This man may be less violent, but the ice in her veins pointed out what her body already knew. 

_He was twice as dangerous._

“Your friend needs help, which I can get him on my ship, and I suspect I’m gonna need _your_ help to do a job. How do you feel about getting him out of here, letting me get you a drink, and then hearing me out?” 

_How did she feel?_

She felt ancient, she felt _angry_ , she felt the pull of the water below and the chains binding her to this stranger. More than all of that, she felt a grim sense of despair. It would be better, perhaps, if she died here. 

But Dorian would have died to save her, would have done _anything_ to free her. She couldn’t do less for him.

“Varric!” 

The shout made her flinch, a male voice booming through the hold, but it was a woman that appeared in the doorway when Maria looked. She had a hat tipped rakishly over long black hair, snug breeches tucked into knee high boots, and a red coat splattered with dark blood.

“Problems?” The woman drawled, gesturing at the scene with her blade. 

“Just in time, Hawke. Get Junior in here, will you?” 

Hawke answered with a flippant salute before she turned on one heel, swinging long legs back through the door. As soon as she did, Varric turned his attention back to her. “Ready to get out of here?” 

Yes. And no. She squeezed Dorian’s fingers tight between hers, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You know what I am.” 

“Someone who needs to get the fuck off this ship.” He answered, holding her eyes, steady and calm. “I’ve got your ticket out.” 

“Take him.” She bargained. “Take him and give _me_ back what’s in the chest.” 

She let her eyes flick to the foreboding box behind him, the lock gone now, far too late. It contained her ticket out, but she couldn’t snatch it herself, and Dorian… Dorian was in no shape to do so. Although he would be, if they helped him, and there was a woman on board…

How many pirates kept a woman on board? One armed to the teeth? 

“We need to talk first, but I _swear_ on my chest hair, I won’t hurt you. And I’ve got no intention of keepin’ a prisoner.” He sounded sincere. A younger, more naive woman would believe him. She wasn’t that, not any longer, but she didn’t really have a choice, just this illusion of one. 

She hated even more that it was veiled in kindness. 

“Fine.” She whispered.

“Thank Andraste.” The captain’s shoulders dropped. Just in time for two other figures to darken the door. The woman was back, her blade sheathed, a hulking human over her shoulder. Varric waved them over, eyes still fixed on her. 

“We gotta get him up to Anders. Preferably before he bleeds out.” Swift fingers began undoing the rest of the buttons on the crisp, white coat Dorian wore. 

“We’re taking in strays?” The hulking man asked. “Maker’s balls. Is that a Tevinter Navy coat?” 

“Exactly the sort of question I’d like to avoid being asked in front of Broody, thank you.” Varric pulled the coat off with a grunt, pinning the woman with a disgruntled look that wordlessly asked why _she_ wasn’t helping. 

“Yes, you know, Fenris _loves_ surprises.” Hawke stepped forward, tossed a quick grin into Maria’s face before she knelt down and started tugging at the other half of the coat. 

Once it was removed, Varric jerked his chin towards the large man. “Alright, you two get him to the ship. I’ll follow.” 

“Here.” 

She’d been so focused on trying to keep track of the weak rise and fall of Dorian’s chest, more visible with the coat removed, that the fist thrust under her nose made her flinch. In it's fingers dangled something blue, smelling of something bright and masculine. She followed the muscled arm up to the bright sapphire eyes of the man above, half hidden under choppy dark hair. Red flooded his face as she stared at him, uncomprehending. “Your shirt. It’s ripped.” 

His eyes slipped to her bare shoulder, then pointedly back up, color deepening before insisting again. “Here. It’s yours.”

Hawke giggled. “Carver, mother would be so proud.” 

Carver dropped the coat like it burned him, letting it fall in her lap, whirling on the other woman. “Unlikely, since I’m still following you into a life of debauchery.” 

Still snapping at each other, both of them lifted Dorian easily, supporting his weight between them. “Alright.” The woman huffed, shooting a sly wink to Maria. “Sneak the bleeding Tevinter past the Broody elf. Easy.” 

“Can you _not_ flirt with the poor woman?” 

“You’re telling me that coat thing was _purely_ chivalrous? I’m not buying it for a second, you arse.” 

The bickering faded to a dull, constant sound as the two vanished through the door, leaving them alone as the ship began to tilt even more precariously. It wouldn’t be long before the Red Iron sank beneath waves to the graveyard at the bottom of the sea.

Maria allowed herself the vicious pleasure accompanying that thought, but before she could revel in it, Varric stood and jerked his head to the chest at the foot of Worthy’s bed. “Anything in there that’s gonna cause bodily harm?” 

_Not to him._ He waited for her answer, patient, too-bright eyes fixed on her face. She wondered, for a second, if he’d be content to wait till the ship went down and solved all their problems. As the silence dragged on, she relented, shaking her head. 

He moved like quicksilver, at the chest before she could blink. His strength took care of the rest of the lock, throwing the remaining melting metal to the floor. Like he too just needed to get this over with, he wrenched the lid open and let it clatter against the heavy frame of the wooden bed. 

Varric's breath released all at once as if he’d been holding it just before his arm plunged into the container, carefully withdrawing something sleek, soft, shining in the darkness. Maria’s heart ached, the memory coming back with such stunning clarity she needed to shut her eyes against it.

_“Nice day for a swim.”_

_Weathered hands brushed the wet hair clinging to her neck away, down the curl of her spine. She leaned back, her head dropping to his shoulder beside her. His boat bobbed in the water near the dock._

_Their boat. Their dock. Their home._

_She was naked as a babe underneath the evening sun, his arm curling around her, the pelt spread over his lap where she’d thrown it when she emerged from the ocean beneath them. One broad hand, a plain gold ring on his finger, rested on it softly._

_“Nice day for a swim.” Maria repeated, pressing her lips to his jaw. “Nice evening for other things.”_

_He laughed, the sound echoing around them, brighter than the gold light glinting on the waves._

For a moment, she was home again, but when she opened her eyes it was a stranger smoothing the coat in his arms with unwelcome hands, gently folding the dappled gray fur over his arm like a precious treasure. His eyes, when he raised them to hers again, were dark and shuttered. More incomprehensible to her than the ocean itself.

“You ready to get out of here? Cause I am.” 

She nodded, giving him the cue to brush past her, sword out. She stood, the human’s coat in her hands. It felt warm, and she wouldn’t turn her nose up at another layer of protection from whatever came next. She slipped it over her shoulders, the sleeves falling past her hands, the coat itself nearly stopping at her feet. 

The dwarf looked, wary, out into the hull before waving her forward with the blade. “Try and stick close, okay?” 

As if she had much choice, but she supposed it didn’t matter. She lifted her chin into the air and followed him, leaving that cloying, claustrophobic space for the last time. Wherever she landed, whatever happened next, it _couldn’t_ be worse. 

_It couldn’t be._

“Careful.” Varric warned. “I don’t want you to trip on the bastard.” 

Worthy’s lifeless corpse had shifted as the boat rocked, lying directly in their path. Like a gentleman in the grand avenues of Ostwick, her new owner lifted his hand to help steady her after he clambered over the body. 

She didn’t look at him and she didn’t look down. Staring straight ahead, she took the offered assistance, lightly leaning on his strength to step right over Worthy. She felt his blood soak the hem of the skirt she didn’t bother to lift, trailing through it and leaving a track as she continued onward, leaving Varric to follow in her wake. 

_Keep fighting_. She had to keep fighting until she _won_ or could fight no longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexy pirate sword fight! Soft Carver Hawke! ANGST!


	5. A Selkie Boards Bianca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric brings his rescued selkie onto the Belle Bianca. Anders isn't pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you haven't noticed yet, I am using a heavy blend of Celtic folklore to write this AU. I am drawing, in particular, from legends and folklore of the [Orkney Islands](http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/) for much of the sea magic discussed in here. I 100% recommend delving into this rich heritage that I cannot hope to do justice. 
> 
> Much of this lore will of the Scottish Celtic variety, but I am also going to be using [Irish Folklore](https://darkemeraldtales.wordpress.com/) in bits and places coming up, particularly as I fit the Dalish into this AU. I recommend digging into this too, as yet again I am only dabbling and using it as inspiration and it deserves to stand alone. 
> 
> The language used in this chapter as the native language of the Finfolk is Scottish Gaelic. Much like modern Irish, it is a language that has been almost lost to colonialism and the conversion of indigenous peoples from their traditional religions to Christianity. I am not a historian (yet again - professional dabbler) but a quick search revealed only 50,000 people speak this language still in Scotland. There is a strong effort to revitalize this language - which I learned about at [Gaelic.co](https://gaelic.co/). In particular, there's a great post about how and why to incorporate different languages into your fiction which you can [read here.](https://gaelic.co/gaelic-for-authors-2/)
> 
> I have agonized over the translations here and I am a solid 90% on their accuracy. If any of the people reading this _do happen_ to know Scottish Gaelic please drop me a line. I'd love to, on occasion, pick your brain as I'm writing. 
> 
> As always, thank you to [Jennserr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennserr) and [Lostinfantasies38](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinfantasies38) for the neat translation trick! Hover over the Scottish Gaelic and you'll see the English! I have also popped the translations into the end notes.

Varric Tethras hoped things would be a bit easier the second his boots touched his own deck. 

The redhead he dragged with him had other plans. 

As soon as they found themselves on a ship that _wasn’t_ sinking, the woman wrenched herself away from him like she couldn’t bear the thought of his touch for a second longer than necessary. The way she’d balked when he first showed her the rope they’d use to swing on over to the Belle Bianca made him worry he’d have to throw her fine form over his shoulder like a pirate raider.

Luckily, it hadn’t been necessary. He had little doubt he could accomplish it, for all her wicked fury he certainly had the strength advantage, but he’d hate to take her by force when she’d already clearly lived through hell itself. 

Although, of course, he'd never need to use force with her. She’d do _whatever_ he wanted, _whenever_ he wanted it. All he needed to do was ask. 

Yeah. Varric was _definitely_ going to be ill over the side of his own boat. 

She twisted Carver’s old coat around her form, drowning herself in the over-sized garment. He noticed her shaking hands shoved deep inside the pockets with a pang of worry. “Where’s Dorian?” 

“Wait a second.” The words escaped without thought, but as soon as she stiffened he kicked himself. The coat in his hands felt made of lead, heavier with every passing second.

Before he could apologize, she repeated her question with a toss of her head. “ **Where** is Dorian?” 

There it was again, the tip of her chin into the air, her flashing eyes. Really, she wasn’t asking so much as _demanding_ the information she wanted. From the tip of her upturned nose to the way she planted herself firmly on the deck, she was _royalty_. 

And, well, she _had_ waited a second. 

“Princess, can you give me a second, _please_?” The nickname suited her, even as it made her pause, confused. He saw her turn the name over in her mind and took advantage of her distraction to take his eyes off her and shout for Isabela. 

“We’re clear, let’s haul ass before she drags us down with her!” 

Rivaini, however, had a very covetous expression locked on her face. One that rarely boded well. It was pointed, not at his chest hair as per usual, but the woman behind him. “Varric, did you bring us a _present_?” 

He didn’t even need to look to feel his guest's wariness double. Her apprehension was palatable, and the last thing she needed was Isabela looking at her like she was a meal to be devoured. 

“Rivaini can we focus on not dying for another ten minutes?” He asked, gesturing to the ship sinking beside them. “Then we can deal with your libido.” 

Isabela’s eyes sparkled the same way they did when someone promised a duel. She purred. “Oh Varric. _Promise_?” 

But her hands, thankfully, were spinning the wheel and she turned her attention, back down to steering them to safety. Bianca spun effortlessly away from the Red Iron, slicing through the waves.

Varric dropped his attention back to his beguiling problem, only to see her stormy eyes pointed at the ship they’d just vacated. Varric followed her gaze, watched as the mast cracked, causing the sails to collapse. While they observed in silence, it crashed into the top deck.

His selkie’s pink lips turned up in a smile both beautiful and bloodthirsty. Icy dread filled him to see the murderous glint in those striking eyes. A part of him wanted nothing more than to toss the silky coat over his arm at her, then promptly throw both it and her into the waves just to get rid of the dangerous creature before he got burned. 

A part of him worried she’d drag his ship down to the deeps anyway, just to punish the world for what she’d been through. He couldn't blame her. 

_And, Andraste have mercy, he needed her_. Hawke needed to get to Sundermount. Varric couldn’t get there by himself, not even with Anders to smooth the way. That was Ceasg magic shrouding that place, and nothing could break it or navigate it, except…

Except _maybe_ the Selkie he now, unfortunately, owned. 

Fuck. _Fuck_.

The wreckage of the Red Iron got further away as Isabela found the current, Bianca slipping into it like a great whale going home. They picked up speed and the resulting breeze took tendrils of blood red hair and blew them past his mystery woman’s lips. In the sun, she was twice as lovely as she’d been in that dark hold. Even with the dark hunger in her face, she was an enchantress worthy of a fairy tale. 

The kind, of course, that ended with careless sailors drowned by those delicate, trembling hands hidden in the coat sleeves. 

Yet he ached for the weariness in her face, the bruises he’d seen on her skin. She needed a once over from Anders too, then they’d all talk about the most efficient way to get to Sundermount and throw her back in the sea where she belonged. Maybe he could pay her. Offer her safe passage to wherever she needed to go, to the family that was surely missing her. _Anything_ to make him feel less guilty. 

“We can go find your friend, beautiful.” He offered softly. “Anders is taking good care of him, promise.” 

“I want to watch first.” She whispered.

Varric didn't look away from her eyes instead of finding the sinking ship fading into the horizon. In those pale orbs he saw the Red Iron break in two, before both pieces quickly splashed into the unforgiving ocean. She didn’t look away, not until the very last sharp point of the shattered mast was gone.

Then she closed her eyes and shivered before opening them, a mask of disdain falling over her features when she turned her attention to him. A part of him nearly tightened his grip on the seal skin coat thrown over his arm, a defense against the hatred seething in her eyes. 

Instead, he inclined his head to the side, gesturing to the steps leading into the hold. “After you, Princess.” 

The second she spun away, making a neat little circle, he dug his fingers into the soft pelt in his hands. Something about it, _blighted magic most likely,_ made him want to rub it against his stubbled jaw. The longer he held it, the more heady the urge, which meant he needed to toss it somewhere at the first available opportunity. 

They said it was a selkie’s curse that caused her to be powerless to the man who held her coat. 

Varric wondered if the curse didn’t cut both ways. 

* * *

She climbed the steps below deck like stepping into a coffin, the ones she hadn’t even seen before leaving Orzammar. She still remembered her horror when she saw the first dwarven acquaintance who passed during her time on land placed in his cairn. It only doubled when she was told humans burned their dead. 

She’d been so devastated by the thought that she made Fynn _promise_ that he’d put her back in the sea when she died. He laughed. They had years together, the rest of their long lives, but he promised her that when that time came he’d go right into the sea after her. 

They probably put his body in a cairn when they found the massacred port. Maybe they even burned him. She wasn’t there to tell them differently. 

That made her shake _more_ instead of less, made tears of rage prick at her eyes. She wanted to turn to the man behind her, pull his pistol from his sash, and end his life just as quickly as _he_ ended Worthy’s. 

_Not yet_. It wasn’t safe yet. She didn’t have her magic to fall back on if it failed, and it _could_ fail. Especially with her shaking fingers shoved deep in the pockets of the coat, especially with the ache in her dry bones and the exhaustion threatening to sweep her under. She remembered his easy strength supporting her as they swung back to this blighted ship. He possessed twice the strength she did. 

Maybe she’d never get her magic back. Maybe this was, finally, what she’d been asking for. It would be a slow, painful death after a year of brutality. If it was, it was still better than being chained to another man, another _pirate_. If that was the case, however, it may be worth making it a quick end. 

She stumbled on the uneven last step, hand flying out to steady herself. It met solid resistance, a steely grip lightly circling her arm. “Easy there, Princess. We’re not in a rush.” 

His touch made her sick, but he hastily removed his fingers before she could even demand he do so. Steady again on the deck she peered around the hold. She found it neater than the Red Iron had ever been, bereft of junk and stolen treasures. Instead, it almost seemed comfortable. A few wooden tables, plain and sturdy, sat with rough benches at either side. A galley, she supposed, tucked away behind them. 

Varric gestured the other direction and she turned to face a veritable sea of hammocks, most separated by a maze of curtains hung to give the illusion, if not reality, of privacy. Maria froze, staring at them for a second. 

They looked like shrouds you lay over the dead and she could half convince herself that slimy, rotten arms would shoot from behind them to tear her limb from limb. The thought was only made worse by the splashes of blood on the boards between them. Varric simply stepped around her, giving her as much a wide berth as he could. “You coming, Princess?” 

He paused, patient, in the middle of the mess of hammocks, intent on following the bloody trail. She took a deep breath and plunged through the narrow path behind him, crossing her arms around her waist so she didn’t brush against the flimsy partitions. 

She smelt the dried herbs before she saw them. The sharp tang of blood lotus combined with the faintly sweet rotten smell of black lotus, almost overpowered with the musk of spindleweed. The herbs hung far above her head, but a human could reach them. She observed them with the tiniest twinge of curiosity. What were herbs like _that_ doing on a pirate ship? It reminded her of the market in Orzammar, the stall that sold medicine to ease the ache in Nanna’s joints. 

She wondered if they still ached when a storm was brewing. 

“Yes, that’s the bullet. Hawke, take this.” 

There was another partition, a sheet hung to cut off the entire rear of the ship, but behind the sheet she saw shadows. Human ones cast onto the expanse of fabric by a light flickering somewhere within. 

Varric pulled the sheet aside and Maria was hit with the overpowering scent of alcohol, the strongest kind. Varric, apparently, was too. His broken, scarred nose wrinkled. “Andraste’s ass, how much of the good shit did you use?” 

“I’m good for it.” A tall blonde man answered with a wry grin, not looking up from his work. He was passing a long silver rod to Hawke while picking up an instrument Maria couldn’t name. It looked like the tongs the blacksmiths used, both on the surface and below, to handle hot metal but much smaller. 

“No you’re not.” Varric sighed, looking over his shoulder to gesture Maria into the makeshift room. 

Dorian lay on a flimsy cot, far too pallid beneath his bronze complexion. The blonde took the silver tongs and plunged them into the wound. Varric winced, perhaps sympathetically, but Maria had seen much worse.

There'd been a cabin boy on the Red Iron. He'd been caught stealing food, so Worthy marooned him on a sandbar with nothing to eat or drink. She still remembered the boy begging and screaming as they sailed away, Dorian stroking her hair as she cried and his tears caught in his mustache. 

Cole. The boy's name had been Cole, and he'd been such a sweet, shy thing. Her throat burned with remembered pain. 

Maria dragged herself from her memories, watching the surgeon. She expected the man to dig for the bullet, the one she fired, but in only a few tense moments he was withdrawing a bloody hunk of metal. 

“If he gets past the blood loss, the worst thing we’ll have to worry about is lead poisoning.” The human chirped. “But he’s young and strong. I’ve seen worse odds.” 

“Plus, he’s far too handsome to turn all green from lead poisoning. It would be a _travesty._ ” Hawke gestured pointedly with the bloody silver rod in her hand, red flecks splattering everywhere. Maria doubted the woman noticed.

The surgeon tipped his head, considering, before splashing more of the strong smelling liquor into the wound. “He is rather pretty, isn’t he?” 

“He’s going to live?” Her voice came out little more than a rasp, but Hawke looked up from her mindless twirling of the silver rod. 

Hawke beamed at her, sunny and carefree. “You decided to join us!” 

Decide was a strong word. For his part, the surgeon didn’t look up at the question, instead reaching for what Maria assumed were bandages. “He should. He’s lucky, if it went a little to the right or left and we’d be talking over a corpse.” 

Luck worked in strange ways. Still, Maria could almost collapse into herself in sheer relief. No matter what, Dorian wasn’t going to die for her. That, at least, provided some measure of comfort. Not a lot, but some. 

“She’s gonna need checked out, Anders.” Varric instructed, twitching the curtain closed behind them. 

Anders slapped the bandage over the wound and finally looked up, amber eyes seeking her out. She was already shaking her head, but those eyes were roaming over her with a look of growing concern. 

“Varric just about knocked her out with that witch magic.” Hawke offered, tossing the bloody instrument she held back on a table with a metallic clatter. 

That statement rang out in the silence that followed too loud, made those amber eyes narrow as he took her in. Maria got the sudden feeling this surgeon, Anders, was looking for something more than just injuries. 

“That magic was meant for her?” Anders swung his eyes to Varric, finally giving the captain his full attention. 

Maria saw his gaze land on the seal coat and understanding flash like lightning over his face. Her heart stuttered in her chest and she debated fleeing, except where would she go?

“ _Andraste’s knickerweasels._ ” 

“Yeah we’re all a bit shocked.” Varric gestured to her. “Can you check her out and make sure she’s okay?” 

“No.” Maria said it out loud this time. “I don’t want-” 

“You can’t _keep_ her.” Anders sounded horrified when he interrupted her. It made Maria pause and look at him more carefully. 

The man was tall, as tall as a human. A surgeon, a _healer_. All those dried herbs that grew by the sea had been carefully preserved by someone who knew what he was doing. The Finfolk were famous for their alchemy, their herbs, their healing. They were ocean people too, not like her, but _maybe_ close enough. 

“Sorry, was I supposed to leave her on the ship we sunk?” Varric asked. 

“Yes!” The bandage he pressed to Dorian’s chest was becoming saturated with blood, but Anders didn’t notice. “She’d have survived, trust me.” 

“Oh for the love of-” Varric pinched his nose and ducked his head. “First things first. Anders, can you please just make sure she’s okay?” 

“She’s not okay. She’s _enslaved_ and you-” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Hawke jumped in, looking between the two men. 

“Anders this is one of the few times I’m gonna have to insist. Check her out.” 

She barely remembered any of the Finfolk language, it had been such a long time since she’d accompanied her grandmother to trade with them. She still made her tongue swallow the clunky syllables, even if she wasn’t sure it was quite right. “Innis dha nach eil.”

Varric shot her a confused look, but both Hawke and Anders looked right at her, then at each other. Hawke finally shrugged her shoulders. “Uh… what’s going on here?” 

“Tha thu sàbhailte.” Anders said quickly, holding her gaze. “I promise. Nothing is going to harm you.” 

“Please tell me you’re trying to convince her to trust us and not plotting my murder.” Varric pleaded.

“As interesting as all this is, your patient is turning blue again.” Hawke pointed out. 

Anders swore, a curse unlike any human one she heard before. It was in that old Finfolk language, certainly. The one that he _and_ Hawke understood. She couldn’t tell if she had the translation quite correct, but she swore it was something about sucking on a shark’s fins. 

“Got another elfroot draft and found some sorta poultice that smells like moldy cheese.” The curtain was wrenched to the side for the huge human to duck into the, now crowded, space. It was the same man whose coat she was currently wearing.

“Kind of you to hurry like I asked there Carver.” Anders snapped, catching the delicate bottle the man launched over her and Varric’s head. Anders popped the cork with his teeth, spitting it to the side. “I need saltwater.” 

“I’m not your errand boy.” Carver bristled. “Fetch your own damn water.” 

“Carver, we’ve got a bit of an emergency.” Hawke gestured to the scene Maria couldn't look away from. Dorian’s body twitched violently and Maria didn’t stifle her gasp in time. Hawke’s blue eyes zeroed in on her, then back to Carver. “Be a dear and _try_ not to be an ass in front of our guest.” 

“Hawke I need that jar of pearls off the shelf. _Now_.” 

Hawke sent one more imploring look at Carver before following the instructions Anders shouted at her. Carver relented and stormed out, but in the chaos Maria slipped to the cot beside Dorian, grabbing his twitching hand in hers. 

“Can you hold the bandage?” Honey brown eyes fixed on hers again. Held them until she nodded and placed her own shaking hands over his. She didn’t miss his keen gaze on them, but he didn’t say anything. 

Dorian’s shirt was gone the way of his jacket, leaving him bare to the waist, the same way he’d been the day Worthy whipped him for _daring_ to confront him over Maria’s ill treatment. She knew if they looked at his back, they’d still see lash scars. 

“Doesn’t help to replace his blood if he’s just gonna keep _bleeding_ , Blondie.” Varric rasped from behind her back. She could feel him there, overpowering, looming. Anders tipped the bottle at Dorian’s lips, holding his head so he didn’t choke on the liquid. 

“Let’s talk about things that aren’t helping.” Anders glared over her head, tossing the bottle to the side. “What do you think is gonna happen, Varric, if you hold onto that coat?” 

“My money is on a sanctimonious lecture.” Varic replied dryly. "But I'd love to be wrong." 

“Oooh, a lecture?” Hawke reappeared with a jar full of shimmering pearls in her hands. “And it’s not even my birthday.” 

“Do you have _any_ idea what he’s done?” Anders asked, snatching the jar from her hand. 

“Saved the lady.” Varric responded. Maria stiffened and very pointedly didn’t look at him. 

“No, because you’re all being _annoyingly_ vague and I refuse to humor you.” Hawke snapped, pressing more bandages over Maria’s fingers. “You need me to hold him down?” 

“Yes.” Anders withdrew one of the pearls from the jar and met Maria’s eyes again. “It's going to be fine. I swear.” 

Hawke pressed her weight down, hard, on Dorian’s shoulders. Swearing, Varric lurched forward to grab his legs. It turned out to be just in time, because whatever the thing in the surgeon’s hand was, it was like no pearl Maria had seen. 

It crackled and crumbled to dust in his grip, releasing a wave of power that blew her hair back from her face. It smelled like fresh, damp seaweed, tasted like salt on her tongue, felt like warm sand against her face. Not home, but close. _So close_.

Light glowed in the man’s hands. Maria leaned toward the power, the song dancing in the wind just out of reach. The notes were wrong, unfamiliar, not the lullaby that sang her to sleep as a child nor the music she heard deep beneath her. 

But at least it was _music_ and she felt like she hadn’t been so close to the ocean’s melody in _months_. 

“Let go.” Anders crackled with blue energy, sparking at his fingers, lighting his eyes. “I have him.” 

Maria released her hold on the bloody bandages. This was no magic like she’d ever seen, nothing she had ever experienced, but if she could trust anyone in this strange ship…

Perhaps the healer was the only person she could. 

The second he touched Dorian’s pallid skin, her friend’s spine arched so severely she feared he’d break clean in half. It took both Hawke holding his shoulders, and Varric’s weight on his legs, to keep him from flying from the table. 

The light sunk into his chest, seeping into his veins and spreading like lightning cracking through the sky in a storm. It could have lasted a second. It could have lasted a half hour. All she could focus on was the light growing brighter, blinding, until she had to shut her eyes. Even then she could still _see_ it through her eyelids. 

The music swelled to a crescendo then fell silent. All she could hear was her own breathing and the tempo of the ocean below. She opened her eyes. 

“Have I ever told you how unnerving that is?” Varric huffed weakly from Dorian’s feet. 

Hawke widened her eyes. “I think he’s pretty when he does it.” 

Anders lifted his hands away from Dorian’s chest, rising and falling far easier than it had, to brush dirty blonde hair from his clammy forehead. The look he sent towards Hawke could only be called smug. “Sweetheart, if you think I'm pretty when I do that...” 

Maria reached out with unsteady fingers to peel the bloodstained bandages from Dorian’s chest. Beneath them, new skin stretched taut over what had been a bloody hole. It would scar. But it was just a _scar_. She could live with scars. 

She placed her hand over the mark, looking into the peaceful face with baited breath before looking up at Anders once more. He smiled, she could almost call it kind, the only person to look so compassionately at her in ages. “He’ll need preemptive treatment to stave off lead poisoning. He won’t be leaving this cot for a couple days.” 

But he’d live. She swallowed the tide of emotion and gratitude choking her throat. She was supposed to offer something, of course, Nanna said the Finfolk always expected to be rewarded for their assistance. Unfortunately, she had nothing to her name except the clothes she wore. “I owe you a debt.” 

“You certainly don’t.” His smile took on a roguish tilt, one well suited for charming a great many people out of their breeches. “I’m upholding an old promise. I wouldn’t see someone suffer on my watch if I could save them.” 

She darted a quick glance at Varric, the coat still thrown over his arm, and Anders’s expression darkened to match. “Right. Let’s talk about-” 

The healer was interrupted by Carver’s sudden reappearance, saltwater sloshing onto the boards while he swore. Thunderous eyes, a perfect match for Hawkes, pinned Anders in place while he grunted. “Right, do I get to throw it on you, or…?” 

“It’s for our guest.” Anders ripped his eyes away from Varric’s defensive features. 

Maria’s heart just about flew out of her chest. The words tripped out before she could stop them, a shocked echo. “For me?” 

“What in the blighted void are you on about?” Carver asked. “Who in their right mind wants _salt_ water?" 

She did. She wanted it in her bones, her stomach, craved it with every nerve singing in her flesh. She could smell it, feel it, the song of the ocean echoing in the tiny space. It trembled, weak, especially compared to whatever power the healer had called down, but it was _her_ melody. 

She’d been without the song of her home so long. She couldn’t dare believe they’d let her have even a taste without there being some price she needed to pay, but was there any price she truly _wouldn’t_ pay? 

Carver plopped the pail on the deck with a frown. The ocean called to her, and it was right there, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t… 

“It’ll help, won’t it?” Anders asked. “Have at it. Unless there are objections from our new resident slave owner.” 

“ _What_ is going on?” Hawke threw her hands up, exasperated, at the same time Varric pinched the bridge of his broken nose. Carver stepped forward, suspicious, and one booted foot knocked the pail, sloshing water out over the lip and sending it spilling to the floor. 

She couldn’t hear anything except the song. The bickering vanished, a distant dream, and she dashed forward with a hunger she couldn’t suppress or control. Her hands still shook, but she was beyond caring. Beyond even shoving the sleeves of the human’s coat up. 

She fell to her knees, plunging her arms into the cool water without a second thought. Her skin tingled, burned, prickled with remembered pleasure. Joy thumped, uneven and barely remembered, in her chest as she withdrew her sopping sleeves and placed the cool fabric to her face. 

Water fell like tears over her cheeks and she almost broke, the rivulets running down her neck and chest. She could feel it sinking into her skin, into her thirsty bones. She ran slick fingers back through her hair, closing her eyes before impatiently diving back in for more and splashing it over her face. 

The tightness in her chest loosened. She felt the blood inside her stir once more, the tide inside her rising to meet the song singing so weakly in the water. For the first time in such a long time, she felt strength returning second by second. Not enough, and not nearly fast enough, but it was something. She'd take it. She'd take _anything_. 

It took her another moment to realize that all the conversation had stopped. She opened her eyes, staring through the water clinging to her eyelashes. All the people in the hold were watching her, slack jawed, as if they’d never seen anything quite like her. 

Perhaps, they never had. 

“Maker’s _breath_.” Hawke breathed. “What _are_ you?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Innis dha nach eil = Tell him no.
> 
> Tha thu sàbhailte = You are safe.


	6. Stolen Coats and Stolen Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric explains to Hawke why getting read of their newest selkie problem isn't as easy as she'd like it to be. 
> 
> Maria washes away the Red Iron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Jennserr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennserr) and [Lostinfantasies38](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinfantasies38) for the neat translation trick! Hover over the Scotts Gaelic and you'll see the English or scroll down to the bottom notes.

Varric Tethras had never seen anything more lovely or heartbreaking in his life.

The selkie hadn’t relaxed an inch since the moment he laid eyes on her. She kept herself on guard, wary of any sudden movement. Her ash colored eyes constantly roamed every area she found herself in. He knew she was alert for danger, waiting for the next blow to land, and he didn’t blame her.

But for a breathless second, she forgot her apprehension.

In that same moment, Varric Tethras nearly forgot everything except _her_.

The water she dived into brought a pale pink flush to life under her freckles, slicked her dark lashes to dangerous points. She sparkled with sudden life, her radiant smile barely hinted at, the corner of her lips just slightly turned up. She would be a force, he realized, when she was returned to her home. _He_ was seeing only a shadow of a creature, weak with mistreatment and his own attack on her. He could only imagine how beautiful she _truly_ was.

Varric suspected if any man saw her lurking on the shore, they would gladly drown in her depths. Him, fool that he was, included.

The urge to touch her, to gently tuck the strands of wet hair clinging to her forehead back behind her ear, overwhelmed him. He nearly moved to do it, stopped only by the other things he couldn’t help but notice. Her hands still shook, even plunged into the bucket of water. She drank in the saltwater like a person starved, careless of her audience, _desperate_ for the ocean on her skin.

How long had that bastard had her on the Red Iron? Months? _Years_?

Then she looked up, eyes jumping from person to person among her enraptured audience. Anders, Hawke, Carver… then finally him. When their eyes met, blazing defiance slipped into icy fear.

She’d made a mess of herself. The coat she wore was soaked through up to the elbows. Her splashing drenched the neck of the blouse she wore, turning the cotton sheer at the neck, clinging to her ample chest.

She lifted her arms to hide her figure, tossing her fiery hair over her shoulder as an extra layer. In the second it took her to tug the coat tighter around her, to hide the transparent blouse from _his_ eyes undoubtedly, her fear turned back to fury.

But he couldn’t forget that look. It settled in his stomach like lead.

The woman didn’t answer Hawke’s questions. She made no sound at all, her eyes blazing as she held his gaze. The silence dragged on as they stared at each other, a battle of wills. Even with the coat slung over his arm, Varric needed her to say it, to breathe reality into the newest bullshit he’d stumbled into. She remained as stubbornly close-lipped as he, and it nearly made him laugh.

 _Nearly_.

“She’s a selkie.” Anders broke the quiet with a simple declaration, his amber eyes resting on the pitiful figure on her knees by the bucket.

Hawke laughed. “Sure. And _I’m_ a kraken.”

Nobody joined Hawke in her amusement, so the peals of laughter died quickly. Instead, incredulous sapphire eyes swung between Anders, Varric, and the creature on the floor before coming back to Varric, Hawke’s mouth opening. “A selkie? Come on, that’s the _sealiest_ thing I’ve ever heard.”

Carver groaned and rubbed at the rising red flush of embarrassment climbing his neck, but at least Hawke broke the intense eye contact his guest speared him with. Both her and Anders whipped to stare at Hawke instead as if she’d gone completely mad. Hawke’s grin faded under their withering glares.

Finally, his first mate cast a despairing glance at him. Varric simply raised his arm, displaying the fine, luxurious fur hanging over it. Hawke latched onto it before she breathed out one word that accurately surmised the whole situation.

“ _Fuck_.”

Varric couldn’t have put it better himself.

He didn’t look back at the redhead, couldn’t risk losing his head again. Instead, he smoothly turned to Anders. “Right. Can you _please_ make sure our guest is healthy enough for us to pitch overboard in the near future? I don’t know how long she was on that shithole and I’m not tossing an injured woman out with nothing but her coat.”

Varric paused, just enough to let the next barb settle nicely. “Unless you’ve considered a more lucrative line of work than ‘penniless healer I allow to eat my food’?”

“So we’re slavers now.” Carver seemed to have found his words, even as Hawke stood at a temporary loss for hers. “Charming. Mother would be _thrilled_.”

“Hawke, a word?” Varric asked through gritted teeth, tipping his head towards the curtain.

The gangly human looked at him, then back to the Selkie, then back to Varric. “If she’s a selkie, _you_ have her coat.”

Before he could make a biting remark about Hawke’s penchant for pointing out the obvious, the woman in question turned to his first mate. There was a shrewd gleam in her eyes that didn’t bode well for him. This was a woman who sensed his crew was not on board with his actions so far.

A woman, he suspected, who would do anything to get her way. Her tongue darted out wet her lips before she whispered, breathy and far weaker than she’d been when speaking to him. “I want it back. Please _help me_.”

 _Well played_. Hawke’s careless facade crumbled in genuine concern, Carver stiffened in virtuous defense of their fair maiden. Both siblings rounded on him and Anders adopted an annoying look of smug self-righteousness. Varric spared a chagrined, and frankly impressed, look at the apparent damsel-in-distress on the floor.

She was quick on her feet, he’d give her that.

“Andraste’s ass, Varric, give it back to her.” Hawke brushed her choppy hair impatiently from her face. “You know it won’t look as nice on you anyway.”

Varric didn’t bother speaking to Hawke, Carver, or Anders. They weren’t the cause of the problems, after all. He fixed his eyes on the woman again, lowering his voice to a soothing rasp. “Princess, it’s gonna be okay.”

Her lips drooped into a displeased frown, face still turned imploringly on Hawke and Anders. But the Selkie monitored him from the corner of her stunning eyes, no matter how she tried to hide it. “You’re gonna have it back. I swear on my chest hair, this ship, and my mother’s grave.”

“Oh I know we’re fucked if he’s swearing on his bleeding chest hair.” Carver grumbled. The woman bunched her shaking hands in the fabric gripping the sodden old coat, still adamantly refusing to look at him.

“Carver, Anders, get her whatever she wants. Whatever she needs.” He scratched at his jaw, observing her one last time. “Princess just… try to relax, alright?”

“Varric…” Anders’s tone still carried the hint of warning.

Varric sighed. “Let me talk to Hawke first. Just... take care of her.”

He wished he knew, as he turned and twitched the curtain open, why that sentiment seemed so heavy in his mouth.

* * *

Hawke followed him like a wraith, stunned into speechlessness until he ushered her into his cabin. The second the door slammed behind her, she unleashed a torrent of cursing her homeland would be pleased by.

“Andraste’s great heaving tits. Maker’s _asshairs_. By the bleeding-”

Varric pierced her with a weary look, tossing the coat onto his desk in a rumpled pile. “Try not to panic.”

“Keel me over the fucking canons and call me Queen of Feelden, Varric. A _selkie_?” Hawke continued, unaffected by his plea. “You’re telling me of _all_ the pretty little things we could pull off _all_ the soddin’ ships in the sea, we got a _selkie_?”

There was that Ferelden burr of hers. Charming. He thought she’d lost it after so long at sea. Varric guiltily smoothed the fur down over his chair, neatening the garment carefully. It was as beautiful as any noblewoman’s favorite cape, silky to the touch, shimmering gray in the sunlight streaming through the windows like sterling silver.

_The same color as the selkie’s eyes._

“I didn’t even know they were real!” Hawke collapsed into her favorite chair, kicking her too long legs up on his table out of habit, before nervously swinging them back off again and pounding her boots against the spindly legs supporting the table. The motion rattled a bottle of brandy and assorted glasses leftover from their last card game. “Father, well. He hardly told any stories after _they_ killed Bethy, and-”

“I’m as shocked as you are, honestly.” Varric admitted. “Grew up hearing about them my whole life, but it had to be bullshit, right? Beautiful dwarven women who turned into seals and could be captured and…”

Varric trailed off. Hawke’s eyes slipped past him and fastened on the coat. She was the one who whispered, horrified. “Captured and controlled. Forced to do whatever the person holding her coat wanted.”

 _Bullshit_ , but he’d seen it himself. Hawke’s blue eyes pleaded with him to tell her something else, _anything_ else.

“She’d have stopped breathing if that bastard told her to.” Varric confirmed her worst fears instead, abandoning the coat to its new place of pride. He needed a glass of brandy to steady his nerves. The deft movements of pouring a measure for himself, then one for Hawke, soothed some of his dread. “I saw it.”

“But you have the coat.” Hawke’s words were blunt. “Varric, _you_ have it now.”

Well, may as well pour himself a double measure to dull the impact of that statement.

“She’d stop breathing if I asked her to.” Varric repeated. “Although, to her credit, she _did_ try to kill me before I figured it out.”

“She didn’t find you charming?” Hawke asked, lips twitching despite the grim dissatisfaction in her eyes. “Shocking. I thought _nobody_ could resist the chest hair.”

Hawke looked at the coat again like she couldn’t stop herself, shaking her head. “Right. So, we make sure she’s got a good meal, let Anders patch her up, and then we toss her out? Or are we waiting till we make port?”

Varric eyed the whole bottle of brandy and wondered how much he needed to drink to make it through this conversation while keeping some scrap of his dignity. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.”

Hawke threw her own despairing glance at the bottle before whining. “Why? Just this once, let’s pull an Isabela and take the easy way.”

Varric pointed to the amulet slung around Hawke’s neck and watched her stiffen. “What do you know about selkies, Hawke?”

“That they don’t exist.” Hawke crossed her arms over her narrow chest, frowning like a petulant child. “Which has turned out to be spectacularly false. I’m having words with my old man someday, I _swear_.”

“A selkie is the best navigator you’ll find.” The story came easy, a child’s tale never quite forgotten. He swore he could hear his mother’s voice curling with amusement. “They say they can find their way through the thickest fog, the worst storms, or…”

“To an island shrouded in Ceasg magic.” Hawke finished, slumping in her chair.

While he watched her consider this, Hawke’s lips pressed in a thin, harsh line. Thin, delicate fingers picked up her glass and swirled the liquid. She didn’t look at him when she spoke, her words quick and furious. “We let her go anyway.”

“I’m not gonna let you take that risk.” Varric jabbed his thumb at the necklace she wore. “What’s gonna happen to you if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain?”

“I’ll deal with it when it happens.” Her brow furrowed.

“Dammit Hawke.” Varric hissed. “This isn’t the blighted Merchant’s Company we can piss off and sod the consequences. You _saw_ that witch. Who knows what she’s capable of?”

Hawke remained stubbornly silent. Varric pressed his small advantage. “You think you’re gonna enjoy life as a toad? Cause I’ve got a strict no-amphibians policy on this ship and that includes amphibians that used to be my friend _before_ they double crossed a crazed sea witch.”

Hawke closed her eyes before rubbing them. “Dammit Varric. I can’t do this to her. Who knows what the fuck that _bastard_ …”

“I’ll talk to her.” Varric declared, taking another bracing sip of his brandy. “She’s smart. She can be reasonable, right? We can make it worth her while, pay her. Give her safe passage somewhere. I’d give her the coat off my back, if she wanted.”

Hawke scoffed and cast her eyes back to the gray fur arranged over his chair. “It’s not your coat she wants. And if I were her, I’d kill to get that back and end anyone who got in my way.”

* * *

Varric’s words hung in the air, long after he left. Both of the remaining men watched him leave in silent shock before looking at each other, then back at her. The back of Maria’s neck prickled and she dug her nails into the thick cotton of the coat.

“Right.” Anders muttered. “Well. That’s a fun conversation he’s about to have with your sister. _She_ , at least, is reasonable.”

“Shut up.” Carver snapped, slowly lowering himself onto his haunches. He had the same blue eyes as Hawke. When she looked closer, the angles of their face and their dark hair gave them away. _Siblings_.

Despite the harsh tone he sent towards Anders, his eyes were warm with concern. He spoke with more hesitance, mouth twisting around vowels that sat strange on his tongue. “Tha thu… tha thu sàbhailte.”

Anders scoffed. “It’s not her native tongue. Speak Common before you butcher _our_ language anymore, please.”

A splotchy flush rose up the skin of the young man’s neck, but he didn’t look away from Maria. “The name’s Carver. What do you want us to call you?”

She didn’t answer his question, she needed her own answer first. “You’re Finfolk ?”

“Barely.” Carver’s lips pressed into a tight line and he shook his head. “Still enough to get into trouble.”

Anders answered her question. “Carver and Hawke weren’t raised in The Shallows. Their father was taken to The Circles, escaped, and never came back cause he took up with a human.”

Carver frowned, eyes rolling towards the deck above them. “As Anders is fond of pointing out, that makes us half as good as he is. Or half as insufferable, depending on who you ask.”

“You _and_ your sister grew up without learning any of our traditions, our language, our heritage, or even how to embrace our powers.” Anders drew himself up, one hand protectively on Dorian’s pulse. “That’s _alright_ with you?”

“You know, I’m sure the oppression was lovely, but I’ll pass.” Carver huffed.

The healer’s face darkened, but before he could say anything Maria broke into the argument she’d inadvertently started. It didn’t suit her purposes to have two of her three potential allies snapping at each other over things she didn’t understand and couldn’t care less about.

“When will Dorian wake up?” She asked instead, redirecting the conversation.

Anders paused and tipped his face back down to the unconscious man, considering. “A day, at least.”

She was on her own, completely, for a day. Longer, really, as Dorian recovered. Even if she got her coat back, could she leave him at the mercy of people who felt it prudent to leave his officer’s coat behind? After he’d almost died by _her_ hand?

Some hint of her despair must have shown through the cracks of her mask, fractured by exhaustion and hopelessness. The giant crouching beside her softened his tone immediately. “Are you hungry?”

The thought of eating made her want to gag, but her stomach protested the strangled no she tried to force to her lips. She bit her lip, unsure of her answer. Her hesitance united the men once more.

“Nothing heavy or salted.” Anders advised Carver. “Broth and biscuits. See if we’ve got any clean clothes that may fit. Maybe Isabela…”

“Not sure if I’d call anything she owns clothing, but I’ll see what I can find.” Carver said, straightening. “And see if Reyna’s sorted this out with Varric yet.”

The human stared down at her for a moment before he gave an odd, stiff little half bow. He stepped away backwards, _right_ into the curtain hiding the infirmary. The human twisted, his too large frame nearly ripping the whole thing down, big arms flailing in circles as he struggled for balance. Then he tripped right out the curtain’s seam, swearing. Maria waited for him to plant right into the deck with a thunderous crash, the sound of cargo being slammed onto docks she imagined, but he must have caught himself because the impact never came.

She didn’t realize she was smiling under pale fingers pressed to her lips, the taste of saltwater on her knuckles, until she dropped her eyes back to the rippling water in the bucket and caught the ghost of it lingering at the corner of her mouth.

The boards creaked, giving away Anders’s movements, and reminded her immediately she was now alone with the man. A man she didn’t know, one she couldn’t _quite_ bring herself to trust completely. She wrenched her eyes up, watching as his lanky form reached for some clean linens.

Anders moved purposefully to her side. Every stride he took was measured, calm, and assured. He didn’t drop down, like Carver had, but held out of his offered bounty of clean towels. “You’ll want to wash up, won’t you?”

He wasn’t wrong, she wanted nothing more than to grab the cloth he offered, rip these clothes off her body, and rub the salt water into her skin until the bruises vanished, until she could wash away every hint that Worthy had ever existed.

But she couldn’t do that in front of him, couldn’t discard the last fragile barrier she had against these strangers, this ship.

Like he knew what she thought, he inclined his head to the curtain. “I’ll be on the other side, I’ll make sure Carver doesn’t fall back through if he comes back.”

Like magic, the serious expression on his face vanished into a roguish smirk when he inclined his head to Dorian’s slumbering form. “He’s out for the count, although you can be safe and throw a towel on him. You’ll just have to tell him he missed the show.”

She didn’t think _her_ show was the type Dorian typically favored, but there was no point in telling Anders. She reached for the towels, trying to keep her hands steady. The words came, halting, to her tongue. “Tapadh leat.”

“Your accent is better than Carver’s.” Anders shot her a pleased wink, inclining his head to the curtain. “Keep an eye on your friend. Let me know if he starts twitching uncontrollably.”

With that, Anders retreated behind the curtain. Silence fell, broken only by the clatter of something far away, perhaps in the galley, and the creaking of the ship. Booted footsteps raced overhead, a sound ringing out in their wake that could have been a woman’s laughter. Far below, the ocean sang a haunting melody nobody else ever seemed to hear.

Maria couldn’t remember the last time she’d been granted privacy. Even with Dorian sleeping beside her, she was _almost_ alone.

She unfolded herself from the floor, straining to make out the noises behind the curtain. She waited to hear the heavy thump of boots approaching, the sound of gruff male voices. She held her breath.

Nothing. _Nothing_. They’d really left her alone.

 _Fools_.

She wasn’t even wearing boots, which made it easy to creep further into the infirmary, holding the blighted skirt in her fist to keep it from rustling across the boards. There were three cots, one of which was occupied by Dorian, but she made for the one shoved back against the farthest wall. Beside it, there was a table that folded cleverly down from the hull of the ship. It was laden with numerous tiny things. More herbs, fresh instead of dried, and jars corked neatly and labeled with words she couldn’t read. A journal sat beside them filled with more of that scrawled, spidery handwriting.

Maria saw what she wanted immediately. It was small, a knife clearly used for shearing or pruning his herbs, but it would do. The pearl handle gleamed, made her remember the tiny mirror with the opalescent frame that Fynn hung by their bed so she could braid her hair in the mornings.

The precious blade was cool in her palm, but it felt as light as a bird. It felt like freedom at her fingertips. She trembled, closing her fist tightly over the handle before shoving it into the pocket of the coat. It hurt to let go of it, but she had to think. Had to move.

She slipped back to Dorian’s side, pressing her fingers tight over his pulse. He still looked pallid beneath his bronze coloring, but underneath the rope rough pads of her fingers his heartbeat pulsed steadily. She let out the unsteady breath she’d been holding, running her fingers up his jaw and brushing them over his cheek.

“You should have left without me, salroka.” She whispered, choking on her unshed tears.

Dorian didn’t answer, but she knew what he’d say if he did. _Never stop fighting._

She had a blade suited for a child, an unconscious friend, and the saltwater they’d given her. It wasn’t much to fight back with, but it was a start. It was more than she had.

 _The water_.

Maria returned to it without really even knowing how it happened, the song soothing her into a trance. She slipped the too large coat from her shoulders, folding it neatly before setting it on the floor. Trembling hands lifted to the stays she wore and began undoing them, her fingers tangling in the knots before it finally sagged enough to fall off. Then she quickly yanked the skirt down, the chemise over her head.

That was it, all the clothing she had, the bare minimum allowed on Worthy’s ship. She stood shivering in nothing but her skin, staring down into her meager pail of water. It was still more precious than anything she’d had in _ages_. She knelt on the folded coat, her only weapon secreted within, and grabbed one of the towels. She dunked it into the cool water and barely waited a heartbeat before dragging it back out, pressing it to her neck, letting the rivulets run down the hollow of her throat. The scent of the salt, the sea, was hypnotizing. It soothed her like a childhood lullaby as she moved the cloth lower, over her freckled shoulder, laying it on the newest bruises she’d obtained.

Worthy’s fingerprints hadn’t even had time to turn blue. Maria pressed the sopping towel to her shoulder and waited, breathing in and out, listening to the song below as the water soaked into her parched skin. After a few moments, she pulled the cloth away and examined her skin critically.

Worthy’s marks were gone, vanished, healed. Her heart thudded, uneven, in her chest.

Gone. Gone, gone, _gone_. Just like him.

He was _dead_. She hadn’t done it herself, like she desperately wanted to, but his blood stained the bottom of the skirt he forced her to wear. His lungs were flooded with the water that sang in her blood. She watched him bleed out, watched his precious ship sink beneath the waves. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she would watch this Captain and his ship end the same way, but at her hands.

If they touched her, she would. If they kept her prisoner, _she would_. She wouldn’t blink an eye.

She dropped it back into the bucket, soaking it again before she lifted the cloth back up in her clenched fist. Water dripped down her arm and she pressed it over her thudding heart.

First, she’d wash him away. She’d wash every damn trace of _him_ , the Red Iron, and the past year away or die _trying_.

She scrubbed her skin until it turned pink with the cold water and the force of her strokes. She would, on occasion, find a mark and use the ocean’s salt to soothe it away. There were more marks on her back she couldn’t quite reach, those would require a swim or a _real_ bath. It didn’t stop her from trying, though, running the water over her shoulders again and again.

She drank it in, wallowed in it, barely even realized she’d used it all until her knuckles scraped the bottom of the bucket. She nearly wailed in frustration, letting the cloth fall from her hands into the murky inch of water left. Instead of giving into the urge to dump it over her head, she pushed her hands back through her hair, smoothing it away from her face.

“Maighdeann-mhara.” Anders voice stirred the curtains just before a forearm brushed with soft, golden hair shoved through them. He clutched a bundle of items in his fist. “Clothes for you. Can’t guarantee they’ll fit, but they’re relatively free of bloodstains. We’ve got food out here when you’re ready too.”

Maria waited a moment before she forced herself to stand and cross, wary, to the curtains. She stood as far from them as she could, reaching out to take the items. Anders released them to her silent tugging.

“They’re yours to keep, if you want them. Isabela isn’t fond of those stays, says she only bought them to take ‘em off. She doesn’t have anything we’d call shirts, really, so you’ve got one of Varric’s. Same with the pants, there’s a belt there to hold them up.”

She listened to his explanation with one ear, shaking out the items. The pants were good, _wonderful_ in fact, but she wrinkled her nose at the gaudy blue shirt. It was made of shiny, slick silk with flashy silver embroidery around the pearlescent buttons.

The curtain twitched and she jumped back, startled, but Anders didn’t appear. Instead, a small tabby slipped through the seam. It cast one look at her and meowed, as if asking what exactly she thought she was doing there with her armful of borrowed clothing.

“That’s just Ser Pounce, feel free to ignore him.” Anders explained, playfully adding. “Or scratch under his jaw if you want to make a new friend.”

Ser Pounce looked like he could care less about any conceived efforts to befriend him. He trotted past Maria, bottlebrush tail high in the hair before leaping lightly onto the cot Dorian occupied.

While Dorian slept, oblivious, the cat crept up his chest and sniffed at the breath coming from his mouth. Maria smiled, hoping Dorian at the very least _liked_ cats before she started to pull the too large pants up her short legs.

The cat’s nose twitched before it turned in a neat little circle and sprawled out on Dorian’s chest, watching her with keen, sea-green eyes, the edge of his tail flicking Dorian’s immaculate mustache.

Dorian wouldn’t like that _at all_. The thought made her smile as she quickly put on the rest of the clothes, layering them over her clean skin like a shield. She tucked the flashy shirt into the pants and picked up the coat with her precious lifeline in the pocket before trudging back to the cot shoved against the wall.

She found the shaving kit just where she suspected it would be, opening the little wooden box and withdrawing the small hand mirror.

The woman staring back at her, long red hair loose over the blue silk and ragged large coat, looked strong. She looked whole. Her magic was still gone, but she thought she felt it edging closer with every second.

She almost looked like a pirate herself, and if that was what it took to survive… so be it. She’d be the worst pirate this ship had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tha thu...tha thu sàbhailte = You are… you are safe. 
> 
> Tapadh leat = thank you
> 
> Maighdeann-mhara = sea-maid 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	7. Nothing to Lose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria Cadash has nothing to lose and everyone knows it. Especially Varric Tethras, who has to deal with the danger of a captive selkie on his ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY I'VE TAKEN SO LONG TO UPDATE. 
> 
> I hope it was worth it <3 Translations can be hovered over OR they're in the bottom notes.

“You know we can get you a coat that fits better, right?”

Maria paused in the act of pushing the too long sleeves up her bony wrists one more time to stare at the healer. She hadn’t realized he’d been watching her endless struggle with the human’s coat. In fact, he seemed to hardly look at her at all. She thought he’d resumed whatever he’d been doing before her untimely arrival.

Whatever it was, it was a mystery to her. He had a thin stick of something soft and shiny that scratched on a book made of blank pieces of parchment. The motions weren’t quite right for writing, but not correct for sketching either.

At any rate, she thought he’d been engrossed, but apparently he’d been watching her from the corner of his amber eyes. She perched on the edge of one of the low cots, a tray on her lap, a bowl of half eaten soup and a chunk of surprisingly good bread beside it.

Yes. The damn sleeves made eating a bit of a challenge, but her stolen knife was secreted in the pocket of her borrowed coat and the thought of losing it made her almost drop the heavy spoon.

“You can have it.”

Carver stood from where they’d drawn the curtain half back. Maria herself was still tucked away from sight of the people she heard coming and going, but Carver stood in the gap with his arms crossed and a scowl twisting his face.

Except, of course, the scowl melted at the edges when he aimed his gaze at her. “If you want it. It’s yours.”

“Oh for- it smells like the bottom of a jar of _turnips_.” Anders wrinkled his nose, tearing his eyes from his book to glare at Carver. “Bela’s got something decent, I’m sure.”

Carver scoffed. “ _Decent_. Have you _met_ Isabela?”

“A bit more intimately than you have if you know what I-”

Carver instantly turned an interesting shade of crimson. Anders’ grin became distinctly wicked. “Oh _Carver_ , is _that_ the issue?”

“Shut up!” Carver snapped. “I’m not having this conversation with _you_ in front of _her_.”

Maria knew three things immediately. First, Isabela was most certainly an interesting individual. Second, Carver could _possibly_ be a virgin.

Third, she was going to exploit that fact _ruthlessly_.

“I like the coat.” She interrupted, letting her eyes flick from her bowl to Carver before falling demurely back to her unsteady hands. “Thank you. It was kind, nobody has been so kind in...”

She trailed off purposefully into the silence, hunching her shoulders forward.

Carver rushed to fill the silence like she knew he would. “I can assure you, my lady, you will be treated with respect.”

The phrase ‘my lady’ threw her. Almost made her choke on a bitter laugh. When had she ever been _lady_ material, especially _now_?

“You know Carver, it’s a shame your sister got the brains _and_ the looks.” Anders taunted.

Carver clenched his jaw, she saw it from the corner of her eye and it made her clench her spoon. Her gut rolled on instinct at the harsh anger there. His bright eyes flicked to her hands, then up to her face, and he wiped the expression away in a moment.

“Ignore him.” Anders swished to her side, slow and steady, face a mask of calm patience. “How are you feeling?”

Better, honestly. Not _great_ , by any means, but better. She could feel the ocean beginning to seep back into her bones from the salty air around them. Strength returned to her limbs in bits and pieces, the food in front of her settled her stomach.

“I want my coat back.” She lifted her chin to stare him down. From the curtain she heard Carver fidget uncomfortably, but she focused on Anders and his suddenly weary face.

“I know, sweetheart.”

The anger surged to life like the tide. She considered for a moment whether or not to throw the lukewarm soup onto his _stupid_ jacket. “Don’t call me _that_.”

Anders threw his hands up, palm out, _immediately._ He summoned a playful smile aimed down at her. “What _should_ we call you?”

She bit her lip and considered him for a moment, examining the pros and cons, trying to figure out if her _name_ would give them more of an advantage than they already held or if it would make them _want_ to help her further.

She supposed she truly did not have much to lose.

“Maria,” she whispered. “Maria of Clan Cadash.”

“Do they know? Were they looking for you?” Anders pressed.

The only person who would look for her was Bea. The rest of her family… well, she was already dead to them. Who came to rescue a corpse?

“No,” she admitted, dropping her eyes. “I was exiled.”

It was like throwing lit gunpowder into the room, all the air sucked out into ringing silence. Carver asked first, uncrossing his arms and moving closer. “Exiled?”

“For the love of... _why_?” Anders blurted out in evident disgust. “There’s not that many of your kind _left_. What could you have done that was bad enough to get kicked up here?”

She should have anticipated the question. Would have, if she wasn’t so damn tired. Instead, she was blindsided by it and the emotions it inspired, swept away by the power of memory.

A warm laugh. The soft brush of fingers on her cheek. Water lapping at the dock. Whispered words while he peeled her coat from shoulders…

_Stay. Come, and go, and **stay**. Whenever you please. _

She made her choice when she left Orzammar, she knew she’d never be able to go back, but what she wouldn’t give to go home and throw herself into her grandmother’s arms one more time. She would wail her apologies to the sea around them for ever leaving because it brought her only sorrow and pain, like Nanna said it would.

Maria thought she’d even stomach Nanna saying she’d been right just to go home again.

“I choose it.” Maria replied through numb lips. And it was true, she had. She’d chosen Fynn. The sun. A lifetime together and happy.

Then it had been ripped away in blood and smoke.

“I want my coat,” she demanded.

Anders sighed and rubbed at his stubbled jaw while he examined her closely. His mouth opened, but for a moment no noise came out. Then he swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing, before speaking.

“Listen. Nobody’s gonna _keep_ you.” Anders reassured. “We’ll get your coat back to you as soon as we can.”

“You can get it back _now_ ,” Maria pointed out, ignoring the tremor in her voice.

“She’s not wrong,” Carver snapped. “What the hell is Reyna thinking?”

She tried not to let her eyes flash triumphantly, but she tipped her chin up defiantly. Anders rolled his eyes to the deck above and shook his head.

“I’m sure she’s coming up with a plan with Varric right now. You’ll see.”

The curtain twitched open before Carver could draw breath to argue, dramatically revealing the petite woman called Hawke. Both men froze at the sight of her icy blue eyes taking in the scene. Maria merely raised another spoonful of broth to her lips.

Hawke wrinkled her nose while she looked up at Carver, eyes dancing with amusement. “My ears were _burning_ , Carver. You were only saying nice things, I hope?”

“I was saying you better figure out a way to fix this,” Carver growled, folding his thick arms over his chest. “Honestly, this is a new low for us.”

“And mother thought we couldn’t sink lower,” Hawke chirped.

Carver’s ears turned red and he cast a surly glare at his sister. “Reyna be serious.”

“Why take away one of your jobs?” She countered brightly.

“ _Reyna_ ,” he begged helplessly.

“Listen, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ve already made a deal with a sea witch, used magic we didn’t understand during a sea fight, and Varric stumbled chest hair first into a fairy story.”

From the corner of her eye, Maria saw Anders scratch at his jaw. “Truly, not even the oddest week we’ve had.”

“Yet!” Hawke declared brightly.

Without further ado, the woman dropped onto the cot beside her, all long, gangly limbs. Maria wrenched her gaze from her soup to stare at the human examining her with all the bright-eyed curiosity of a seagull who’d found something shiny.

“You know, I’ve always thought seals were _adorable_ ,” Hawke insisted. Maria bristled, searching for the sarcasm under the words that _had_ to be there.

But the sincerity behind them was almost undeniable. Or at the very least, as evident as the choking embarrassment behind Carver’s sputtered. “ _Reyna_ , you’re a blighted idiot.”

“Carver used to have a toy one, as a little boy,” Hawke whispered confidentially, cozying up far too close as if they could share their deepest secrets with each other. “He called it-”

“Where is Varric?” Carver demanded. “He needs to fix this.”

“In his quarters,” Hawke chirped, shooting an annoyed look up at Carver. “We’ve got a plan.”

Anders actually _winced_. “Andraste I hate it when you say that.”

“It’s a good plan!” Hawke protested, turning her madly flashing eyes back to Maria.

She felt her own stomach plummet, but she managed to numbly repeat the words back. “A good plan.”

Hawke shifted to put a slice more space between them on the narrow cot, dropping her gaze from Maria’s face. The human’s long, thin fingers plucked at a loose string on her pants. “We should talk about it. Me, you, and Varric.”

That did nothing for the rolling unease in Maria’s gut. In fact, she half thought she’d throw up the soup she’d just ate.

Like Hawke saw the thoughts in her eyes, her hand lunged out and found where Maria’s shaking knuckles gripped the wooden spoon. The hand engulfing hers was warm, but it made Maria freeze anyway.

“You’re safe as you can be here, _trust me_.”

Maria snapped her eyes up to examine the guileless gaze of the other woman. The words, _trust me_ , were an order. But, of course, Maria didn’t have to obey this one. Not from her, at any rate.

“No,” Maria breathed, defiant and furious. “I _won’t_.”

Hawke didn’t look away from her anger. She weathered the crackling storm of it like a seasoned sailor, smile tightening into something tense. A dare, perhaps, to be dragged down underneath it.

For a second, Maria thought she could see a matching tempest to her own reflected back at her.

Then it was all enveloped in a sunny, easy grin that was completely carefree. Tropical seas and a balmy breeze instead of tumult and fire.

“Fair enough, but we’ve still got to talk, don’t we?” Hawke asked, swinging back up out of the cot. “You’ll want to be a part of the whole ‘planning what to do about the selkie on the ship’, seeing as you _are_ the resident selkie on the ship.”

Hawke twirled on one booted heel, spinning to offer her hand to Maria. “We’ll go talk to Varric and then I’ll show you around our fair Bianca.”

Maria stared at the proffered hand and tried to weigh her options. She could cross her arms over her chest and simply refuse to move until somebody attempted to move her, which could be interesting, or Varric came down and _ordered_ her to move.

Let them all see what he’d do. What they all did once you gave a man the power to command anything.

“Maria,” Anders said softly. It made her look away from Hawke to examine his face. “Bruidhinn riutha. Chan urrainn dha a ghoirteachadh.”

“Please tell me you’re helping, Anders,” Hawke whispered.

His amber eyes held hers, ignoring Hawke while Maria considered him. A heartbeat stretched into two before Maria made her choice. She quickly set aside her nearly empty bowl and spoon and stood, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and clinging to the knife she’d stolen.

“I will parley with the Captain,” she declared with a voice much steadier than she felt and a toss of her hair over her shoulders. She hoped the tip of her chin and her steely posture still befit the heir to House Cadash.

Nanna once had been so proud of her composure.

Hawke’s eyes flickered with momentary amusement. “I see it now.”

“See what?” Maria snapped.

Hawke’s madcap grin stretched her lips wide over white teeth and pointed canines. “ _Princess_. It suits you.”

Maybe it had. _Once_.

A long time ago.

* * *

Varric kept waiting to wake up.

Surely this was some sort of bizarre nightmare. Yes, true, dwarves didn’t dream but Hawke had gotten him into all sorts of trouble. Maybe she’d slipped him some sort of toxin by accident and he was hallucinating.

He could almost believe it, if not for the soft fur just beneath his fingertips.

It was finer than velvet or silk, sleek and sinfully smooth. Varric knew he needed to shut the lid on the trunk and tear himself away from it, from whatever magic laced each pretty inch of that fur coat.

But he couldn’t quite stop himself from one last, lingering touch.

With great irritation, mostly with himself, Varric withdrew his hand and slammed the trunk lid down. Grumbling under his breath, his deft fingers latched the trunk closed and began to fiddle with the elaborate lock. One of Bianca’s endless inventions, sent to him in place of her fine self.

If he could trust _this_ story to a letter, he’d do it in a heartbeat, if only to get back her incredulous response at his outrageous bullshit.

Varric twisted away from the trunk, the blighted coat, and the bitter memories before he could make an even bigger fool of himself than he was already in danger of doing. He retreated back to his desk and the maps scattered over it. Scowling, he moved Hawke’s hastily discarded glass off the delicate parchment.

It was a good plan. It could work, it could work _very_ well and solve all their problems while assuaging his own personal guilt. After all, under this proposition, their selkie wouldn’t be a slave so much as a short-term employee under contract.

If she accepted it. Which Varric suspected would be quite the battle.

He heard the door open behind his back and took a deep, steadying breath. Hawke’s voice rang out, overly cheerful. “And this here is the Captain’s Cabin. We usually all pile in here to play Wicked Grace and lose our respective shirts to Varric.”

A pause. Then his selkie’s wry, morbid response. “I don’t have anything else to lose to the Captain.”

Someday, soon possibly, he was going to _murder_ Hawke.

He turned to look over his shoulder and try to salvage the situation, but found himself momentarily lost for words at the sight that greeted him.

She cleaned up well. _More_ than well. Her hair fell in soft, crimson waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her arms were crossed under her chest. Carver’s too large coat enveloped her like a blanket, but the glimpse of her curves in breeches caused two conflicting urges.

The first, to throw a sheet over her and bundle her out of his room before she caused _more_ problems.

The second, to invite her to take that coat off and have a drink at his table while he tried to charm a smile out of that sorrowful face.

Her stormy eyes found him, seared into his soul, and took his breath away. He wouldn’t be shocked if that venomous, intense gaze could see down to his rotten core and all the secrets he kept.

Then her eyes slipped away from his and _directly_ to the elaborate trunk in the corner. Her lips twisted into a frown. Something, fear he supposed, made her hunch her shoulders and twist her fists in the pockets of the coat.

There’d be no fooling her. Varric could see the despair flash across her face already and it sliced at the bleeding heart in his chest.

She wasn’t getting her coat back and she knew it. Not yet.

“Thanks for joining us, Princess,” Varric plastered on his kindest, most sympathetic smile. “You’ve got some color back. Did they get you something to eat?”

The selkie drew herself up to her full height, defiance radiating from every line of her body, and Varric’s heart sank.

It was never easy. He should know better.

Hawke broke in just as she opened her mouth. “Her name’s Maria.”

She closed her mouth again with an audible click while Hawke spoke, glaring at him in a way that threatened to set his chest hair alight.

“Pretty name,” Varric offered. “I knew a girl in Markham called Mari-”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped immediately.

Varric threw his hands up in a gesture of helpless supplication. “Princess it is, then.”

Maria pursed her pretty lips like she’d sucked on a lemon, but on the balance, she clearly decided to give him his nickname if she was withholding her _actual_ name from his vocabulary.

He reached for the map on the desk and rolled it up, monitoring the pretty redhead and Hawke from the corner of his eye. “Since you’re clearly feeling better, we can talk business. Come in and have a seat.”

Because he was an absolute sodding idiot, he didn’t realize his catastrophic mistake right away. He noted the woman stiffen like she’d been struck by lightning, so taut he doubted she even drew breath.

Before he could open his mouth to ask what had happened, she lurched from the threshold to the table more like a doll being pulled by a string than anything else. Her small hand pulled out a chair, hair tipping to cover her face.

Her hands were shaking. He noticed it when she let go of the chair and settled herself into the seat, eyes not on him or Hawke but straight ahead. She folded her trembling fingers in her lap and froze, waiting.

Waiting for his next command.

 _Shit_.

He swung his eyes helplessly to Hawke, who’d clearly realized his error at the same exact time. She simply crossed her arms over her torso and glared down her pointed nose at Varric with the _most_ disapproval he’d ever seen on her mischievous features.

And, of course, she offered absolutely no help.

Varric slowly circled away from the desk, taking care to let his boots creak on the deck while he walked until he was in Maria’s field of vision. He thought he could see one bright eye fixed on him through the curtain of her hair.

“So. I’m going to have to be a bit more careful of my words, but I’ll get the hang of it.”

She didn’t move. Varric swallowed, hard, and took another step towards her. He half expected her to stand and topple the whole table, complete with expensive whiskey and the prior night’s card game, between her and him. He half _wanted_ her to.

Anything would be better than the stone cold _acceptance_ of being at his mercy.

He lowered his voice to a soothing rumble. “I didn’t mean to do that, Princess. You don’t have to sit if you don’t want to.”

She twisted to look at him, fury turning her eyes into molten infernos, before she made one single demand. “Get _on_ with it.”

Varric had to give it to her. Anyone _not_ looking at her would hear the imperious command and think she was in control of the situation. The only thing that gave her away was her shaking fingers and feral eyes.

She was a trapped shark. In _his_ cabin.

Varric lifted his gaze from hers to meet Hawke’s. As if waiting for his cue, she shut the door behind her. Maria stiffened for another second before she heard Hawke’s steady, loping steps crossing the room on her long legs.

Hawke dropped into the chair nearest Maria with expert inelegance, which left Varric with the one across from her. And although Maria’s eyes flicked to Hawke’s lanky form, it was him her gaze jumped back to. It left him _no_ doubt who she considered the bigger threat.

He was also getting a big, ugly picture of what Worthy had been up to with his captive selkie who couldn’t tell him no.

His stomach burned with righteous anger, but it wasn’t something he wanted Maria to see. Instead, he dropped his eyes to the table, slowly unrolling the map he’d picked up. “Worthy had you lot the whole way out in the deeps, Princess. Bold of him, considering I’d heard he navigated about as well as a drunk blindfolded in a brothel.”

Hawke scoffed to herself. “Well when you’ve enslaved your navigator the party never stops, huh?”

Varric flicked his eyes from the map, studying the pale face staring at him. She had a wrinkle of concentration on her brow, but she didn’t flinch from his gaze.

He found himself distracted by her freckles. A smattering of them over her nose and cheeks that softened the sinfulness of her appearance and made her… endearing. In truth, he’d be hard pressed to pinpoint the most beguiling of her features. Crackling eyes, sinful curves, hair the color of angry men’s blood, and plump lips pressed firmly closed.

If she’d been some serving girl at a tavern…

But she wasn’t, and he needed to get that through a skull growing as thick as Carver’s, apparently.

“Were you his navigator?” Varric asked softly.

“No. I was his prisoner,” Maria’s lips barely moved, voice flat and emotionless. “Now I’m yours.”

“You’re not a prisoner here,” Hawke hurried to reassure. “You’re a guest.”

Maria said nothing, but the silence spoke volumes of her disbelief and mistrust. And truly, Varric didn’t blame her.

“We don’t want to keep you here against your will,” Varric began softly. “But the reason we came looking for you is because we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

Some flash of life flitted across Maria’s features, illuminating them. He watched her struggle for a moment before she gave into her curiosity. “How did you know I was on the ship? I wasn’t allowed to leave. Nobody was allowed to see me.”

The words dripped bitter from her tongue. Varric could imagine the orders Worthy spun to keep her hidden, his secret treasure, his powerful weapon.

“A witch told us,” Hawke answered simply.

All the hostility dropped from Maria’s expression for a second, just long enough for her to tear her gaze from Varric and pin Hawke with a bewildered stare. “A witch?”

“The witchiest witch I’d ever seen,” Hawke claimed. “Deserted coastline. Hut in the jungle. Bones hanging from the ceiling. Crazy laugh. This one-”

At that, Hawke jerked her thumb towards Varric. Maria followed the gesture for only a second before deliberately focusing on Hawke’s story while she picked up steam.

“Got it into his head that Worthy had some new invention he didn’t and was _very_ put out about being beaten to a certain smuggler’s cache. We followed his bleedin’ curiosity the whole way to the asscrack of Ferelden. Then we got to a witch and he _blinked_.”

Varric broke in. “And by blinked she means I had _very_ reasonable concerns about dealing with a witch.”

“So I took the deal. She gave us that poison we threw at you, sorry about that by the way, told us where Worthy was, and then asked me to run an errand.”

Hawke leaned back precariously in her chair, kicking her boots up on the table and giving Maria the widest grin she was capable of. “Completely worth it to sink that bastard and get you out, in my opinion. Slightly less excited about your Tevinter companion, but hopefully we’ll get you both back where you belong _before_ I’ve got to handle any bloodshed.”

“You made a deal with a witch to find me because _he_ was curious?” Maria repeated.

“We honestly didn’t even know we were looking for you, Princess,” Varric admitted, drawing both her attention and her ire.

“You must think I’m an _idiot_ to believe somebody would do something so stupid,” she hissed.

“It wasn’t our finest decision,” Hawke waved away the accusations from midair. “But, that’s all behind us now. The question is _what_ do we do _next_?”

“Let me go!”

The cry seemed to startle even Maria with its raw, painful intensity. Her eyes swung from Varric to Hawke and back again. “Let me _go_. Give me my coat and let me go.”

Varric sighed and rubbed at his face briskly.

Maker, he wanted to. That desperate, pitiful cry made him want to do _anything_ she asked. She didn’t deserve what she’d been through, didn’t deserve them prolonging her torment.

“We need your help,” Hawke prodded gently. “The errand, I have to run. I need to get to-”

“I’ll get you there,” Maria promised desperately. “Anywhere you want. Just give me back my coat first.”

“We give you that coat back, you’re gonna stick around, Princess?” Varric asked.

Her eyes, wide and clear as the sky above, fixed on him. “Yes. I swear.”

She was a good liar.

_He was a better one._

“Princess, I don’t want to-”

“I will. I’ll stay and-”

Varric closed his eyes like a coward and swallowed the bile in his throat. It had to be done. It _had_ to be done.

“Tell me the truth, Maria.”

She stuttered to a stop in her demands, choking on the sudden silence. Varric slowly opened her eyes just as her lips parted on one, half strangled sentence. “I won’t help _you_.”

She’d be gone, like the wild creature she was, like all the stories always said. A selkie reunited with her coat couldn’t be held by any tie to the land, even to their own children forced upon them.

She’d be gone and beyond his reach, and he’d be lucky if she didn’t take his whole ship with her in revenge for their stalling.

Tears burst into her eyes, but they didn’t fall. He knew she wouldn’t let them while he watched. Hawke pitched so far back in her chair Varric was shocked she didn’t fall right on her skull. She groaned to herself, rubbing at her face in exasperation.

They’d both hoped… well. It didn’t matter. The selkie couldn’t be trusted, as Varric suspected, and so they needed to proceed carefully.

But they didn’t need to make this worse than it was.

“I swear on my mother’s cairn, you’re gonna get your coat back,” Varric leaned forward, fighting the urge to offer a hand he knew she’d never take. “We need you to get us to the Isles of Sundermount so Hawke can keep her bargain. The second it’s behind us, you’re free. You can even stay and we’ll get you home. We’ll pay you. It’s a job, not… not captivity.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Maria demanded through choked emotions. “I am _your_ prisoner and you are _using_ me. What else will you do?”

He’d set her free if it killed him to do it. He’d see that rage and fear melt away, see her _restored_ to what she _should_ be. That’s what he was going to do, but he knew Maria wouldn’t believe him. She had no reason to.

“Can you let me make a gesture of good faith, Princess?” he pleaded. “How about you ask for something, ask for _anything_ , except that pretty coat? If I can give it to you, it’s yours.”

He half expected her to throw his offer back in his face. But her bright eyes flitted helplessly to the porthole and the sliver of sky outside.

“Anything,” Varric repeated eagerly, capitalizing on her distraction.

“I want to swim,” she whispered, not even bothering to look at him. “I want to be in the ocean.”

If he wasn’t careful, she’d break his heart with that quiet desperation of hers.

“We can weigh anchor in about an hour, Varric,” Hawke offered quietly. “Give or take. Have you in the water by sunset, Maria.”

The flicker of hope on her face was intoxicating. Varric drew her attention back to him with one soft question. “How’s that for a start, Princess?”

She didn’t say anything. She simply dipped her chin in silent assent.

It wasn’t a yes, but it was more than a no, and he’d take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruidhinn riutha. Chan urrainn dha a ghoirteachadh. - Talk to them. It can’t hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and supporting me. Please feel free to comment, yell at me, or come find me on tumblr [@cartadwarfwithaheartofgold](https://cartadwarfwithaheartofgold.tumblr.com/) for some excessive posting about chest hair and dwarves.


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